Re: Tasks policy
Anthony Towns wrote:
> Remember: the point of tasks is to make the initial install simpler,
> so that people can get started on Debian without having to wade through
> dselect.
>
> So it's not a problem if *nothing* other than tasksel can handle
> installing and removing tasks elegantly yet.
Sure, but it's a problem if the way we reimplement tasks is not
something other tools can eventually handle elegantly. I don't want to
see tasks be something hackish that is bolted onto the side of Debian, I
want to see them cleanly integrated and supported by as many tools as
possible.
> Task: headers are more akin to Section: headers than Recommends:. Both in
> that people really ought to be able to just uninstall a package if they
> don't like it, and in that the complexity of dependency specifications
> just isn't warranted.
Have you thought at all about renaming Task: to Enhances:? Dpkg already
has some limited Enhances support, the two fields really have very close
if not identical meanings, and perhaps other dpkg frontends will one day
support Enchances, giving us task support for free. (I would really like to
be able to continue to use tasks in dselect, even though this is not thier
primary purpose. Dselect is still an alternate installation path that you
can choose instead of tasksel.)
If tasksel just starts looking at Enhances fields for tasks, we can
simply make the policy say that you cannot add a Enhances: task-* to a
package without asking the relevant authority.
--
see shy jo
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