Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Dependencies on system packages

[Alec Warner]

Jason Stubbs wrote:
>
>
> There's ways to manage this complexity, such as putting the dependencies into
> autotools' RDEPEND (if it can be considered correct) or by using
> meta-packages. However, your point is against requiring that packages _must_
> specify all system dependencies. While I personally believe that packages
> should specify all dependencies, what I'm arguing against is requiring that
> packages _must not_ specify any system dependencies.
>
> --
> Jason Stubbs

I agree with your personal belief, however I also find it unmaintainable 
in the current system (metapackages in their current form 
non-withstanding as I don't think they are a great solution, merely duct 
tape if you will, but that is another discussion entirely).

There is no benefit for me as a package maintainer to dep on a system 
package unless there is an existing problem.  From a maintainer POV it's 
extra work and extra writing to keep the deps up to date.  Also there is 
the whole thought of what to list?  Do I list only glibc versions that I 
know work? gcc versions that I know compile my code?  Where does the 
line get drawn?  What is the point of depending on certain elements if 
say, they are already a dependency of $PACKAGE_MANAGER?  It is not 
pragmatic for a distribution to do so IMHO, 'technically correct' or not.

A few use cases that would go against this involve people doing odd 
things like emerging a bunch of stuff and then unmerging a critical 
system package (say, ncurses); since my program happened to depend on 
ncurses anyway it would 'fix' the problem automatically for the user 
instead of dying with no ncurses.  Of course this use case could be 
handled another way; by having portage make sure that packages listed in 
  'system' are installed.  While I am a fan of the 'fix it automatically 
in DEPEND' way here; the use case is rather...convenient.  Unmerging 
many things in system either break portage, or won't affect anything (oh 
no I unmerged virtual/editor!)

So yeah, in conclusion; too much work, fix it when it's reported broken 
seems like a decent (pragmatic) policy to me.  If/When it becomes easy 
to list stuff (package sets or something, please not metapackages in 
their current form) then I'd be much more interested in implementing it.

As an aside, If you are unsure in a given situation feel free to ask 
someone about it.  Worse case you (put an extra dep in|leave out a dep); 
both are easily repairable.
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