Re: perl-doc recommendation
[+#504042, debian-dpkg, deity]
On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 1:02 AM, Niko Tyni <ntyni@debian.org> wrote:
> I could use some backing with #504042 / #496770 (perl-doc gets pulled
> in by default).
>
> You tagged #442805 as wontfix with
>
>> There is a bit of history with the perl-doc package... The perl
>> community has been at times very critical of the fact that the docs are
>> split out *at all*. The argument is that the docs are an integral part
>> of the perl distribution.
>
> Have you got any references? I've been searching for a while and the
> best I came up with was
>
> http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl6.stdlib/2000/09/msg109.html
>
> which doesn't really apply as #86154 has been fixed for ages.
>
> Please comment on #504042 if possible. I can see this becoming a popular
> complaint with lenny because it's the first release where apt installs
> recommends by default.
Hrm.
apt installing recommends by default certainly paints this issue with
a different colour. An odd choice, given that the same problem
existed with dselect until joeyh provided a fix which caused the
prompt for recommended packages for installation to be presented only
once.
Many of the complaints about Debian's handling of documentation came
from IRC, where recommendations of "perldoc -f whatever" were often
met with a response from the querent of "perdoc not found". These
complaints have subsequently been addressed by the addition of the
stub perldoc which provides instructions to "apt-get install
perl-doc".
So you may be able to downgrade the recommendation to a suggests,
although a better suggestion might be for apt/dpkg to support a
"Soft-Recommends" which would be installed by default only when the
package was directly selected, rather than pulled in as a dependency.
--bod
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