Hi! On Thu, 2017-03-09 at 17:29:09 +0000, Ian Jackson wrote: > I think the right way to solve this problem is to declare that: […] > * If a library needs or wants additional software installed, > if and when functions in that library are called, this > should be documented in the /usr/share/doc/BAR/README.Debian.gz for > the corresponding -dev library package. (If churn is > likely, a library-specific virtual package name may need > to be documented, and provided as appropriate.)
> * Programs which call functions in libraries (directly or indirectly) > should arrange to Depend on, Recommend, or Suggest, the appropriate > infrastructure, as documented by the -dev package(s). We can already represent symbol specific dependencies, so we can have a library that ships this following made-up symbols file: ,--- libservice.so.0 libservice0 #MINVER# | serviced start_service_daemon 0 1 generic_serviceless_action 0 `--- Of course one problem is that libraries might not be delimited in this way, and they might just start such services when merely initializing the library, when calling any of its functions, or at any point inside some state machine or whatever. Also a program might call such function but that might be conditional on a configuration parameter or something else, so the fact that a program uses that symbol does not mean it might even call it. Thanks, Guillem
