On Thu, Mar 09, 2017 at 10:19:10AM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Now, if this were taken a further step so that dpkg-shlibdeps would
> provide some mechanism to *automatically* add those downstream
> dependencies to packages that depend on the library unless the
> dependencies were explicitly suppressed, I wouldn't be as strongly
> opposed.
I think this is probably the best way forward, and it doesn't even need
to be too complicated:
- Modify dpkg-shlibdeps so it supports the type "opt" in the shlibs file
(see "man deb-shlibs" for details);
- Make dpkg-shlibdeps emit the conjunction of the regular shared library
dependencies (i.e., typeless dependencies) and the "opt" type ones
(the daemons etc that the library would need if used) in the
${shlibs:Depends} substvar, if no special command line parameter was
passed to it;
- If a special command line was passed to it of the form
"--suggests=libfoo0,libbar0" or "--recommends=libfoo0,libbar0", then
pass the optional dependencies for the given packages in new
${shlibs:Suggests} or ${shlibs:Recommends} substvars instead (and pass
any optional dependencies for packages not so given still in the
${shlibs:Depends} substvars).
With that, maintainers who consume libraries but don't do anything
special will continue to produce working packages; and maintainers who
consume libraries and care can use ${shlibs:Suggests} and
${shlibs:Recommends} substvars to decide where the optional dependencies
must go without breaking anything for users.
The only problem with that scheme is that there will need to be a
transition for libraries where all their users will need to be rebuilt
before they themselves can drop the new optional dependencies, otherwise
new packages will fail to pick up the dependencies that become their
responsibility. This is something that can be done by triggering binNMUs
though, so shouldn't be a showstopper.
This doesn't cover symbols files (because there's currently no way to
specify a "type" in a symbols file), but I don't think that's impossible
to fix.
(you'll also need to modify helpers such as CDBS and debhelper so that
the given parameters can be passed; but none of that needs to be a
showstopper...)
--
< ron> I mean, the main *practical* problem with C++, is there's like a dozen
people in the world who think they really understand all of its rules,
and pretty much all of them are just lying to themselves too.
-- #debian-devel, OFTC, 2016-02-12
