On Wed, Feb 04, 2004 at 10:10:31AM -0600, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 04, 2004 at 09:02:15AM -0700, Joel Baker wrote:
>
> > > For example, a jikes has a Recommends as follows:
>
> > > Recommends: jikes-sablevm | jikes-gij | jikes-classpath | jikes-kaffe | jikes-sun
>
> > > Now, all of these packages, but jikes-sun, are in main (or will be once
> > > uploaded). Does jikes satisfy the policy? Does the policy refer to "a
> > > package" as "jikes-sablevm OR jikes-gij OR ..."
>
> > > OR
>
> > > does it mean "jikes-sablevm AND jikes-gij AND ... " ?
>
> > Point 1 - It's "Recommends". Therefore, it doesn't matter. You can
> > Recommend *anything*, even stuff that is so non-free that Debian doesn't
> > distribute it at all (though it would be better to Suggest it unless there
> > are free alternatives; see point 2).
>
> Unless Policy has changed since the last time I looked, I understood
> that the consensus was that both Depends: and Recommends: must be
> satisfiable within main, due to the behavior of certain packaging
> front-ends which will pull in recommended packages by default.
Hmmm. That wasn't what I understood, but it is, at least, a reasonable
argument. The counter being "we won't make it depend on" does not say "we
won't make it install non-free pieces by default if you've got a non-free
repository in your list". I believe policy doesn't actually *say* any of
it explicitly, and the interpretation certainly has had a lot of arguments
over it, usually resolved by pushing the non-free stuff as far away from
Depends as we can. :)
In either case, the correct answer for this package does seem to be a
Recommends on a free primary and a virtual alternative that just happens to
be provided by both free and non-free packages. As long as at least one of
the free packages makes it an actually useable, meaningful choice (IE, "it
works" for reasonable values of work), it should always be fine if other
alternatives include non-free stuff, even as a Depends.
--
Joel Baker <fenton@debian.org> ,''`.
Debian GNU/NetBSD(i386) porter : :' :
`. `'
`-
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