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Interpretation of policy 2.2.1



Hi all!

Debian policy 2.2.1 specifies that packages in main "must not require a
package outside of main for compilation or execution (thus, the package
must not declare a "Depends", "Recommends", or "Build-Depends"
relationship on a non-main package)". I'm not sure about the
interpretation of this sentence: can a package in main depend against
"package-in-main | package-not-in-main"?

The first part (outside the parentheses) of this quote seems not to
forbid this (as my package does not _require_ package-not-in-main), but
the second does (because my package formally depends on
package-not-in-main). What is the correct meaning? Maybe the text should
be fixed in order to be clearer.

The problem arises for many packages depending on java: many packages
would likely depend on openjdk-6-jre | sun-java6-jre. The first
dependency permits their inclusion in main, the second is very useful
for people who needs to have sun-java6-jre for compatibility reason and
wouldn't like to have two JREs installed on their Debian system (see bug
#496861).

Some packages already declare such a dependency (freecol,
libwoodstox-java, openoffice.org-base), and I would like to add it also
to josm. Is this allowed by policy?

Thank you, Giovanni.

(please, Cc: me on replies)
-- 
Giovanni Mascellani <g.mascellani@gmail.com>
Pisa, Italy

Web: http://giomasce.altervista.org
SIP: g.mascellani@ekiga.net
Jabber: g.mascellani@jabber.org / giovanni@elabor.homelinux.org
GPG: 0x5F1FBF70 (FP: 1EB6 3D43 E201 4DDF 67BD  003F FCB0 BB5C 5F1F BF70)

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