Bug#688772: gnome Depends network-manager-gnome

[Josselin Mouette]

Le vendredi 05 octobre 2012 à 16:46 -0700, Don Armstrong a écrit : 
> On Sat, 06 Oct 2012, Josselin Mouette wrote:
> > The code that makes it actually *work* without NM installed was
> > added for kFreeBSD – incidentally, by the same NM maintainer whose
> > work has been repeatedly thrown into mud in the discussions.
> 
> So, besides the important goal of a complete gnome experience, there's
> no other technical reason why NM must be installed?

Why would there be? The very purpose of metapackages is to define the
complete gnome experience. For other packages, dependencies indicate
what is required by what.

> > I disagree with the contents of §5 and §6.
> 
> What in particular about §5 and §6?

      * The affirmation that this will cause undesirable upgrade
        behavior is grossly exaggerated. 
      * The reason for the historical Recommends instead of Depends is
        not mentioned, while this history is used as an excuse for the
        whole decision. 
      * The claim that NM can be replaced by another component without
        functionality loss is preposterous. 
      * The excuse of the squeeze→wheezy upgrade serves as a basis for a
        seemingly irrevocable decision that affects all future versions
        of GNOME metapackages.

> It's inflammatory to accuse others of having religious motives.[1] I
> personally have no interest in punishing, persecuting, or otherwise
> attacking the gnome maintainers or any other maintainer in Debian, and
> I would be surprised if all of the other members of the CTTE don't
> feel the same way.

Yet you should wonder why there is such a broad consensus among GNOME
maintainers that NM should be a dependency, while most people pursuing
the goal of NM removal are not even GNOME users. I don’t think what we
do with GNOME affects autopkgtest, curl or hashalot.

> We all want Debian to be a technically excellent distribution which
> users want to use, and while we *often* have very different ideas on
> what that actually means, we have come to those ideas by honest means.

Ideally, yes. However I feel obliged to question the honesty of people
spreading misinformation before using this misinformation to request
CTTE decisions.

> > But if people from either side start questioning this compromise, I
> > am afraid they are going to do a lot of harm to the project.
> 
> We're all on the same side together.

Looking at Ian’s last proposal, I’m afraid not.

        8. We specifically forbid anyone from introducing in wheezy, or
in sid until wheezy is released:
    a. Any new or enhanced dependencies, or any other mechanisms,
       which increase the likelihood of network-manager being
       installed;
    b. Any new or enhanced user-facing warnings, imprecations, or
       other kinds of message regarding the alleged desirability or
       requirement to install network-manager;
    c. Any change which in any way impairs (or further impairs) the
       functioning of systems with GNOME components installed but
       without network-manager;

I’m having a hard time not seeing this as religious, but I’m ready to
listen to other explanations.

> 1: Additionally, the negative connotation is offensive to the many
> people who are involved in or use Debian who have religious beliefs.

People being offended because of their imaginary friend, just like
people being offended by at the idea of not developing Debian like
System V, are officially Not My Problem™.

Cheers,
-- 
 .''`.      Josselin Mouette
: :' :
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