Re: [PROPOSED] Change package relations policy to remove references to non-free from main
Raul Miller <moth@debian.org> writes:
> On Mon, Nov 29, 1999 at 08:54:56PM +0100, Roland Rosenfeld wrote:
> > Is this really the correct way? Why does the maintainer of
> > netpbm-nonfree have to change his package every time some package from
> > main suggests it? This may be political correct, but it is not
> > logical or consistent.
> Wichert just this week made the change to dpkg which to support this
> system.
You're missing the point. Nothing that Wichert does to dpkg will
change the fact that Roland doesn't maintain netpbm-nonfree, and can't
directly control the contents of its fields. Ditto for me and the
netscape and festival packages. I have a package which will use
netscape and festival if available, but they're not my packages, so I
have no way to express that except with Suggests or Weak-Suggests or
(my current solution) the description field.
A Weak-Suggests could be every bit as invisible as my current solution
-- maybe even more so -- for those who don't want non-main software,
but would have big advantages for those who *do* use non-main
software.
Enhances is too much hassle to deal with. It violates encapsulation.
It's information about the (soft) dependencies of my package, but
isn't under my control. I'll never bother.
--
Chris Waters xtifr@dsp.net | I have a truly elegant proof of the
or xtifr@debian.org | above, but it is too long to fit into
http://www.dsp.net/xtifr | this .signature file.
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