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Re: Suggests vs. Recommends



Benjamin Mesing wrote:
>       * a plugin architecture package (which provides merely the
>         framework for additional functionality) without any additional
>         is useless by itself so it requires at least one plugin.
>         According to the policy wording this should qualify for a
>         depend?
>   
No. What this means is that the plugins depend on it. The description
can have some text saying "installing this on its own is meaningless".
At best, it should have "suggests" for the plugins.
>       * Each plugin provides a certain amount of functionality (usually
>         one or more features)
>         I am not sure if this qualifies for Suggests or Recommends
>   
Each plugin should "depend" on the core infrastructure. If each package
has just one plugin (ala the apache/php modules), then it should
"depend" on apt-file and whatever else is needed for it to actually
work. If you combine all plugins into one package (for example, if you
want people to be able to add their own plugins without installing all
of the built-in plugins), then it depends on the necessity of the
plugin. If the plugin is really really likely to be used, make its
dependency "recommends". Otherwise make it "suggests".

I really think, though, that the only clean way to handle this case is
to split the plugins to one plugin per package.

Hope I've helped.

Shachar



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