Bug#747716: qttools5-dev-tools: libqt5sql5-sqlite should be a hard dependency
On 5/11/14, Scott Kitterman <debian@kitterman.com> wrote:
> On Sunday, May 11, 2014 18:52:31 Shriramana Sharma wrote:
>> Hello. You say it is not a hard depends, but
>> https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/dreq.en.html#control
>> says to use Depends "if your program absolutely will not run (or will
>> cause severe breakage) unless a particular package is present." Given
>> that assistant is one of the programs installed by this package, and
>> it does not run without the libqt*sqlite package, IMO it stands to
>> reason that the latter is indeed a Depends.
>
> You are misreading that. In this case Recommends is what is typically used.
You say "typically used" -- you are saying this is current existing
practice of package maintainers. Fine. But it is not as per the policy
as it is stated in the above page. Please point out where in the
specification does it say "Recommends is used for packages which are a
dependency of one/some but not all of the programs installed by a
package"?
The policy as it stands as to what are Depends, Recommends and
Suggests is quite sane, but it seems to speak as if one package
installs one program only. One would assume that what is said by the
wording for one program is true in general, and hence "program" would
be read as "programs". In which case, whatever one of the programmed
installed by a package cannot be executed without is indeed a
dependency.
> Debian (and Ubuntu) install Recommends by default, so the only reason you
> wouldn't have Recommends installed too is if your system is in a
> non-standard
> configuration. If so, that's the problem, not the package.
I do not install recommends by default because I am not on a very high
speed connection. Probably others may choose it because they are on a
connected billed by bandwidth used.
Whatever be the reason for not installing recommends, I expect that
when I install a package using apt-get, it should pull in the hard
dependencies, and the hard dependencies are those which are required
to execute whatever is installed by the package. As I said earlier,
the dependency of one program installed by the package should be a
dependency of the package. If not, it is simply counter-intuitive.
--
Shriramana Sharma ஶ்ரீரமணஶர்மா श्रीरमणशर्मा
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