Thibaut Paumard writes ("Re: Depends/Recommends from libraries"): > There are quite legitimate uses for dependencies or recommendations in > libraries. For instance, tne library that I maintain (libgyoto) has the > option to provide MPI paralellisation. This requires an external > executable, which is provided in a separate package. The external tool > is in a separate package because it can exist only for one architecture > at a time on the system (it lives in /usr/bin), while the library lives > in a multi-arch directory.
This is perhaps a nice example. Mind if I ask some questions ? You say "an option to provide MPI paralellisation". Is this option enabled by default ? Does it occur with all useful functions in the library ? Do library callers control over whether it occurs ? Are there any programs linked against libgyoto which actually call into libgyoto only some of the time (perhaps, rarely) ? (I did a quick search and it seems that libgyoto's rdependency stack is quite short. There's some python modules and something to do with yorick, but they are all explicitly gyoto-related; and there are some blend metapackages, which are fine. So maybe the answer to this is no, but maybe it will become yes in the future.) Ian. -- Ian Jackson <ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> These opinions are my own. If I emailed you from an address @fyvzl.net or @evade.org.uk, that is a private address which bypasses my fierce spamfilter.