reassign 552052 perl-modules retitle 552052 clarify perl-modules status thanks
On Fri, Dec 25, 2009 at 12:57:44PM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote: > Ryan Niebur <ryanrya...@gmail.com> writes: > > > Here's the explanation for why: > > http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-perl-maintainers/2009-October/026578.html > Before I do this, can I get confirmation that this is still the intention? > This was several months ago and I'm not sure if the plans have changed > since. There isn't any indication in the long description of perl-modules > that the package is going away or that other packages shouldn't depend on > it. I think it's too early to change lintian, let's make things clear in perl-modules first. I'm taking the liberty of reassigning the bug, hope that's OK with everybody. In fact, based on Don's concerns and the discussion on debian-devel [1] it looks like we're going to back away from the perl+perl-modules merge. Moving all the arch-indep data into an arch-dep package is a regression, not an improvement, and I don't feel the gains are big enough to tip the scales. We've been doing OK with the circular dependency for nine years or so after all and the only actual problem I'm aware of is the piuparts limitation. However, I think there is a point in discouraging direct dependencies on perl-modules. The current perl/perl-modules split is not based on any functionality differences, just the implementation (effectively XS vs. pure Perl.) If a module happens to get reimplemented, it needs to be moved between the packages, but I don't think its reverse dependencies should need to be notified. Therefore I think that the perl/perl-modules split should be considered an internal implementation detail of the perl source package, and other packages should only depend on perl (or some specified versions of perl-base, in exceptional circumstances.) The first steps to this would be just a change to the perl-modules long description and a lintian warning triggering on the 150 or so packages currently (build-)depending on perl-modules. Obviously, some other places like the lintian recommendation in `versioned-dependency-satisfied-by-perl' [2] need to be changed, but I don't think there's too many of those. I think this should eventually also minimize any problems caused by the circular dependency (if nobody but perl depends on perl-modules, it should be really easy to break the loop), but it's possible that I just don't understand them fully and somebody should enlighten me. Changing 150 packages won't happen overnight but there's no particular hurry with it and I think the remaining dependencies could be filed at some point as minor bugs. This is still not set in stone, and I'd welcome any input. [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2009/10/msg00516.html [2] http://lintian.debian.org/tags/versioned-dependency-satisfied-by-perl.html Happy new year everybody, -- Niko Tyni nt...@debian.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org