less dependencies in Debian packages ?

[jean-christophe.haessig@dianosis.org]

Hello,

I tried to look if somebody already made a proposal similar to this one,
but couldn't find anything. Eventually I was directed to this list, so
this could not be the right place for such a post. Thanks to direct me
if any of you know of a better one.

It is often said that (some) debian packages carry too much dependencies to
be useful for embedded projects or sometimes drag in annoying libraries.

Making these dependencies optional would help people who try to minimize
their system image and still enable the people who need them to use them.

How to do it ? The dependencies I'm discussing are decided at compile time.
If one could build a program with every possible 'interesting' combination
of compile-time (enable or disable library) options (and using ccache to
speed things up), he could then create an archive of binary patches against
the most stripped down version of the binary. For example the utility
EDelta (http://www.diku.dk/~jacobg/edelta/) efficiently produces patches
for executable binaries (but isn't sufficient since it doesn't support
n-way patches).

Then, the binary the user calls would be some sort of rebuilder script
which would pick the correct patches depending on what is really available
on the system. Many hard dependencies could be moved to 'recommends' or
'suggests'. To prevent rebuilding the real binary every time, it could be
built every time a depending package is installed.

I'd like to know if you think this idea could work or not (and if not, why)

Thanks,
JC Haessig