Bug#565500: libpango1.0-0: must not depend on libthai

[Loïc Minier]

severity 565500 wishlist
stop

        Hi

On Sat, Jan 16, 2010, arne anka wrote:
> is there something special about thai, forcing everybody to install
> libthai?
> i don't see libpango depending on chinese (having _far_ more writers),
> russian or any other non-latin-based system.

 Pango does not have any optional external dependency for Chinese,
 Russian or other languages.  However it does have one for libthai.
 Apparently, people developing support for Thai were interested in
 sharing the code across more than just Pango (support for e.g. Arabic
 or Hebrew is builtin in libpango1.0-0).  I think using an external lib
 is a good idea.

> so far that dependency forces me to use more space the necessary on
> limited devices like the om freerunner.

 I don't think that's an obvious argument, so let me actually put
 numbers behind it:
    Package                     Installed-Size

    libpango1.0-0               972
    libpango1.0-common          244
    libthai0                    116
    libthai-data                596
    libdatrie0                   92

 So there would some little saving, but it's frankly not much.

 A better argument for avoiding the libthai dependency in default
 installs is that libthai recently saw a security issue (DSA-1971-1).
 That's IMHO a stronger argument for trying to avoid the dependency.

 However this has to be weighted against dropping support for Thai out
 of the box, or developing the logic to install it if needed.

 One way forward would be to make the dependency a Recommends; that's
 only ok if it's maintainable in the packaging in a decent form and if
 it doesn't cause any runtime warnings.

> debian tries to cater to a plethora of different platforms -- but it
> should limit dependencies according to the smallest supported platforms, not
> those with a lot of cpu and/or storage.
> and forcing >90% of users to install support for a language they will
> never use is a no-go anyway.

 Debian tries to cater to a plethora of different languages -- but it
 should come with support with them all out of the box.  ;-)

 In all seriousness, I don't think Debian is at the "ready for embedded"
 stage, but I agree we should try to improve in that direction.

    Thanks,
-- 
Loïc Minier