[Debian-med-packaging] Bug#676455: ${misc:Depends} injects broken versioned depends (Was: Bug#676455: gnumed-doc: uninstallable in sid: depends on outdated libjs-jquery-livequery)

[Raphael Hertzog]

On Thu, 07 Jun 2012, Andreas Tille wrote:
> > dh-linktree generates strong dependencies on purpose because the set of
> > embedded files can evolve and you want to be sure that you regenerate the
> > binary package when the upstream version of your dependency changes.
> 
> In how far is this different to other dependencies which are not
> injected using dh-linktree.  I admit I can not share your point
> completely here and I would love to at least see an option to switch
> this version binding off (and I would definitely switch it off in all
> packages I'm building or alternatively revert my packages to use
> dh_links again).

It the next upstream version of your javascript library provides new
files, they will not be in the symlink tree that you built in your
package. So at runtime, it will fail because of the missing file.

On the opposite, if some files are dropped, you will have broken symlinks
lying around.

> > I should probably say a word about this in the dh_linktree manual page.
> 
> Not only say a word about it but rather warn about it.

Note that if you use "replace" instead of "deduplicate" or "embed", then
you get a dependency that is less strict (withous upper bound) on the basis
that "replace" is like "deduplicate" except that you're confident that
both versions are compatible and are likely to stay that way.

Cheers,
-- 
Raphaël Hertzog ◈ Debian Developer

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