Bug#599652: openoffice.org-common: Please document reason for libtextcat-data-utf8 recommends, and please consider changing dependency level
On Sun, Oct 10, 2010 at 06:04:13PM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote:
> > > Alternatively, if openoffice.org really can do without this package for
> > > most purposes, please consider documenting the need for this package in
> >
> > It can, but that feature would fail for many languages (and we'd have
> > dangling symlinks here) for the languages where we get these patterns
> > from libtextcat directly.
>
> So, if OO.o needs this functionality to the point of having dangling
> symlinks without it, why not just Depends on it? Hardly seems like an
Because that package is a hack. And if some package (unlikely, though)
started to depend on libtextcat0 it would need to use the
patterns from libtextcat-data. Which conflicts with libtextcat-data-utf8
because both share the same paths.
Of course, this would be a case at any time, but when OOo depended on
libtextcat-data-utf8 there would be no way out of it.
> OO.o user would notice a 250k package, but they'd notice missing
> functionality. (Or worse yet, they *wouldn't*.)
Yes, in most cases they wouldn't, true... That feature is "hidden" in
the statusbar...
> This just seems like taking Recommends to an extreme. I'd tend to think
> that packages shouldn't use Recommends for something that only takes up
> a bit of space (and takes up proportionally far less than the package
> itself), as opposed to something that a user seriously might not want on
> their system for other reasons (like an extra running daemon).
Recommends is not a decisison between space or not space.
>From the policy:
Depends
This declares an absolute dependency. A package will not be configured unless all of the packages listed in its Depends field have been correctly configured.
The Depends field should be used if the depended-on package is required for the depending package to provide a significant amount of functionality.
[...]
Recommends
This declares a strong, but not absolute, dependency.
The Recommends field should list packages that would be found together with this one in all but unusual installations.
Language guessing imho is not that important to fit into the first category,
but as OOo normally includes an own copy of those files in it's common partm
it can be argued that it's "found together with this one in all but unusual
installations"
> such documentation so that the user will see it when installing packages
> in a package manager. Unless you'd propose trying to make OO.o use
> packagekit or similar to auto-install it on demand? :)
? People can look up what libtextcat-data-utf8 is about in a package
manager?
Grüße/Regards,
René
--
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