Bug#477990: Remove non-conflicting requirement in optional; relax dependencies
Package: debian-policy
Version: 3.7.3.0
Severity: wishlist
User: debian-policy@packages.debian.org
UserTags: discussion
Tag: patch
The requirement of optional packages not to conflict with eachother
and not to depend on essential packages are outdated, and appear to
stem from a time where someone would actually want to install all of
optional.
As such, I suggest that this requirement be removed, and only the
meaning of optional "packages that you'd want without specialized
requirements" kept. The attached patch as an initiation point for
discussion acheives this.
Don Armstrong
--
I shall require that [a scientific system's] logical form shall be
such that it can be singled out, by means of emperical tests, in a
negative sense: it must be possible for an emperical scientific system
to be refuted by experience.
-- Sir Karl Popper _Logic of Scientific Discovery_ §6
http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
diff --git a/policy.sgml b/policy.sgml
index ae7149f..7d5a108 100644
--- a/policy.sgml
+++ b/policy.sgml
@@ -718,25 +718,22 @@
install if you didn't know what it was and don't have
specialized requirements. This is a much larger system
and includes the X Window System, a full TeX
- distribution, and many applications. Note that
- optional packages should not conflict with each other.
+ distribution, and many applications.
</item>
<tag><tt>extra</tt></tag>
<item>
- This contains all packages that conflict with others
- with required, important, standard or optional
- priorities, or are only likely to be useful if you
- already know what they are or have specialized
- requirements.
+ This contains all packages that are only likely to be
+ useful if you already know what they are or have
+ specialized requirements.
</item>
</taglist>
</p>
<p>
- Packages must not depend on packages with lower priority
- values (excluding build-time dependencies). In order to
- ensure this, the priorities of one or more packages may need
- to be adjusted.
+ Packages with prority required, important, or standard must
+ not depend on packages with lower priority values (excluding
+ build-time dependencies). In order to ensure this, the
+ priorities of one or more packages may need to be adjusted.
</p>
</sect>
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