Bug#711697: libcupsfilters1 has circular Depends on libcupsimage2

[Bill Allombert <Bill.Allombert@math.u-bordeaux1.fr>]

On Sun, Jun 09, 2013 at 02:19:51PM +0200, Didier 'OdyX' Raboud wrote:
> Control: tags -1 +moreinfo
> 
> Hi Bill, and thanks for your bugreport,
> 
> Le samedi, 8 juin 2013 21.31:32, Bill Allombert a écrit :
> > There is a circular dependency between libcupsfilters1 and libcupsimage2:
> > 
> > libcupsfilters1 :Depends: libcupsimage2 (>= 1.4.0)
> > libcupsimage2 	:Depends: libcupsfilters1 (>= 1.0~b1)
> 
> Indeed. Good catch, thanks.
> 
> > Circular dependencies involving shared libraries are known to cause
> > problems during upgrade between stable releases, so we should try to get
> > rid of them.
> 
> The problem here is that the ABI provided by libcupsimage2 has been split at 
> version 1.6 between libcupsimage2 and libcupsfilters1, hence the depends of 
> libcupsimage2 on libcupsfilters1. 

But libcupsfilters1 already exist in wheezy, so this more a transfer than a 
split ? A split would be more easily dealt with.

> This could probably be downgraded to a 
> Recommends, but brings in the risk that package A, depending on libcupsimage2 
> 1.5 stops to work if libcupsimage2 is upgraded to 1.6 and libcupsfilters1 is 
> not installed (aka partial upgrade).

I'd like to be convinced the dependency is actually sufficient to fix partial upgrade,
especially since dpkg will have to break the circular dependency anyway.
It might be necessary to introduce an extra package.

Is there packages in wheezy that use the libcupsimage2 symbols that are now in
libcupsfilters1 but do not depend on libcupsfilters1 ?

Cheers,
-- 
Bill. <ballombe@debian.org>

Imagine a large red swirl here.