There is a big difference between Recommends and Depends. Depends are required for a piece of software to work. Recommends should be installed with a piece of software the majority of the time, but the software can still work without them, although some features may be disabled. Suggests are just that suggestions.
I think the new policy is a great idea. As a desktop user and I think in the majority of use cases, when someone installs something with apt-get they expect A fully functional piece of software. I know a number of times I have installed some software that I am not entirely familiar with and find many standard features missing because I didn't manually check the Recommends. The software still "works" but often only just! I also think its good policy for people like yourself creating embedded systems. With recommends NOT a default maintainers feel pressured to add additional depends so their software will be "fully" functional with a simple apt-get install. Now they can move these packages from depends into recommends. A default install is now fully functional and the special use case of an embedded system (which would obviously disable the option) will get an even smaller package. As it currently stands recommends and suggests blend together. I think installing recommends by default sharply separates all three. Regards Jared > Policy does not mandate that ALL Recommends: are to be installed. The new > default makes Recommends: disappear completely - there would be no difference > between Depends: and Recommends: just like there is a perception of no real > difference between Recommends: and Suggests: at the moment. That makes things > HARDER for people like me who do not want Recommends: because maintainers > will lose any reason to put things in Recommends: and will end up putting > everything in Depends: just as many current Recommends: are actually just > Suggests: -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]