Re: Interpretation of policy 2.2.1
On Sat, Aug 30, 2008 at 01:05:58PM +0200, Giovanni Mascellani wrote:
> 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.
In my opinion, it would be ten time cleaner to use a virtual package
and have both packages Provides it. This way, when the
package-not-in-main change of names, you do not have to change the
dependent packages.
> 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).
Given the volatility of JRE packages names, I think they would
really benefit from a virtual package.
> 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?
I would prefer to stick with strict meaning of policy 2.2.1. This way,
we would not have to change free packages where non-free changes.
Cheers,
--
Bill. <ballombe@debian.org>
Imagine a large red swirl here.
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