Re: no{thing} build profiles
On Tue, Oct 23, 2018 at 05:04:11PM +0200, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> On 2018-10-22 10:47:05 +0100, Jonathan Dowland wrote:
> > On Sun, Oct 21, 2018 at 10:00:43PM +0000, Ivan Shmakov wrote:
> > > It can be argued that libgpgme11 does not “provide a significant
> > > amount of functionality” (7.2) without gnupg.
> >
> > It won't function at all without gnupg.
>
> That's pointless. A library *alone* is not usable. The real dependency
> should come from the application that will use gnupg via libgpgme11.
>
> Imagine a package A that provides an application that is linked
> against libgpgme because gnupg may be used as an optional feature,
> say by 0.1% of the users. This package must depend on libgpgme11,
> otherwise the application wouldn't even run (even in the case
> libgpgme will not be used). But a Depends or Recommends on gnupg
> will annoy 99.9% of the users;
Err, no.
That number makes the assumption that all users who have something
installed that they don't end up using will be "annoyed".
That's just not correct.
A large amount of users will just select some program in GNOME Software,
and see that stuff is being downloaded. They won't know that there are
multiple packages, just notice that after downloading and installing,
now suddenly they can use that program.
Of those that do know a bit of what happens behind the scenes, many will
not care about what the other packages are. They just know that they're
being installed for some functionality in the software that they asked
for, and will happily allow it to be installed.
Of those that do care, many have more important things to do than to
worry about whether something with an "Installed-Size:" of 716 (!) bytes
does end up on their system.
Of those that do worry, a number may be annoyed, yes. But I suspect that
the number who will be annoyed will be closer to the .1% number you
quote above than the number who will not.
--
To the thief who stole my anti-depressants: I hope you're happy
-- seen somewhere on the Internet on a photo of a billboard
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