Bug#513296: debian-science: Please add science-all meta-package

[Andreas Tille]

[debian-custom in CC because it is strongly related]

On Wed, 28 Jan 2009, Daniel Baumann wrote:

> it would be nice if you could add a science-all meta-package that
> depends on all science-* meta packages. That would make live-cd building
> a bit easier in future, as nobody would need to 'maintain' the package
> list anymore.

Thanks for the interesting idea.

I have some comments on the implementation which might be worth some
thoughts.

  1. Simple but ugly solution: Just adding a task 'all' to the currently
     existing tasks and add all meta packages just in the science source
     package.

     Effect regarding package creation:
      - Closes the bug.  Should work so far for science.  Has no effect
        to other Blends (which might like to build Live-CDs as well).

     Effect regarding tasks pages:
      - A little bit "strange" item "All" would be created.  Users might
        stumble upon this.
      - It might become better if I finish my plan to implement "Meta-Depends"
        which is intended to help science-biology and science-geography
        to reasonable include metapackage information from other Blends
        (rather resolving the dependencies of the metapackage than including
        the metapackage itself which is basically useless in the context
        of the tasks pages in contrast to installing the metapackage).
      - I might think about excluding this task from the tasks page
        generation but I do not like to work around a problem I introduced
        myself formerly

     Effect regarding bugs pages:
      - Makes no real sense, rather disturbing than really helpful.

     Effect on http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=debian-science-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org&ordering=3:
      - Makes no sense at all

  2. Solution for all Blends:  Let the all metapackage be generated for
     any Blend (bug should be reassigned to blends-dev package which is
     sitting in NEW since 4/1/2009 :-( - reassigning to cdd-dev would
     work as bug target as well).

     Effect regarding package creation:
      - Closes the bug.  Works for all Blends.  Might have the side
        effect that some Blends maintainers do not like it but for
        this case we might make this function optional -> this topic
        has to be discussed.

     Effect regarding tasks pages:
      - No "strange" effect as discussed above.
      - Option: We might think about a page featuring all dependencies.
        I would not really like this option for Debian Med but there
        are chances that somebody might like it (for instance as Live CD
        index or something like this).  This option could be discussed.
        I'd be willing to implement this as optional feature if somebody
        might ask for it.

     Effect regarding bugs pages:
      - No effect and thus not distrubing as the simple solution above.

     Effect on http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=debian-science-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org&ordering=3:
      - No effect -> good.

So I prefer to implement the solution in the Blends scope to avoid
unwanted side effects and make the wanted feature available for more
people in one rush.

What do you think?

Kind regards

          Andreas.

-- 
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