> > For Debian packaging, it may make sense to just simplify and say
> "let castle-game-engine recommend libpng". I'm just saying that it's
> not a strict dependency for upstream.
>
> Not sure if I fully agree. If I understand correctly the packages that
have a Build-Depends on cge need the Depends/Recommends on libpng (like
view3dscene).
Sure, it's correct that view3dscene "Recommends" the libpng. Because opening a
VRML/X3D file that uses a texture encoded in png is a very common case, it's
reasonable for a user to assume that "just installing view3dscene" will make
this possible.
And most games use png for textures/images, so they will want to "Depend" on
libpng. Otherwise they could not read png textures. (Which doesn't need to
cause a crash, a particular game may choose to turn it into a mere warning.)
What I meant to say, in my earlier mail, is that: if you somehow make a game
that doesn't use png (maybe it has no textures/images, or only in other
formats like jpg or ppm or dds), then it does not need to depend on libpng. It
will happily work on a system without libpng. So merely using CGE does not
*always* imply that you also need to have libpng at runtime.
Regards,
Michalis
