This one time, at band camp, Jeroen van Wolffelaar said: > On Sat, Apr 23, 2005 at 06:11:13PM +0200, Peter Eisentraut wrote: > > Jeroen van Wolffelaar wrote: > > > This package is of no use without mldonkey-server, either on the > > > localhost, or on some other nearby machine. As mldonkey-server is > > > not in testing at the moment, I think kmldonkey shouldn't either. > > > kmldonkey merely recommends mldonkey-server to allow it being on > > > another host; but you'd need another Debian release or a > > > non-Debian machine to actually use this package. > > > > Are you saying that people are not allowed to use other operating > > systems or obtain software in ways outside of the Debian packaging > > system? > > Eh, no, of course they are. Typically though this happens when the > software in question in non-free, and then the package would be > contrib, otherwise, yeah, one would *expect* software in Debian main > to be self contained -- that is, useable within that release's main. > It'd be a bit weird to release web forum software only working with a > MS access database as backend, or xtris without available xtris > server, etc etc, don't you think?
Not really. What would be the problem of releasing a mail client that can interface with MS Exchange, for instance? Or an ntp client without an ntp server? > Note that I consider this different from a typical client program for > a web service, I would *not* consider an nntp client useless in Debian > if there (hypothetically) were not a nntp server in Debian, as nntp > servers are commonly available online. Not so with mldonkey-server > though, that's a type of server expected to local, and certainly not a > public service anywhere (because, amongst others, the resulting files > are ttbomk stored server-side and one is expected to have access to > them). ISTM that this is exactly a client program that needs a network service. This is not a Depends: like a library dependency, but a depends like irc client needs irc server. If all the irc servers were removed from Debian, do we have to pull all the clients as well? A simple note in README.Debian should be enough to suffice; say, a line like 'this package needs an mldonkey server nearby, and if one is not available in Debian, it can be downloaded from foo.' -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- | ,''`. Stephen Gran | | : :' : [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | `. `' Debian user, admin, and developer | | `- http://www.debian.org | -----------------------------------------------------------------
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