Bug#1033274: gnome-session: recommends xdg-desktop-portal-gnome and not depends

[Jeremy Bícha]

On Mon, Mar 20, 2023 at 6:51 PM Pablo Mazzini <pmazzini at gmail.com> wrote:
> gnome-session can work properly without xdg-desktop-portal-gnome.
>
> As per the policy:
> Depends: This declares an absolute dependency.
> Recommends: This declares a strong, but not absolute, dependency.
>
> Please recommend xdg-desktop-portal-gnome.
>
> The gnome-core meta package already provides this dependency and it may
> be appropriate there.

I am not convinced by your justification. Flatpak and Snap packages
are expected to work on Debian and require an xdg-desktop-portal
implementation. It is impossible for Flatpak (or Snap) alone to depend
on the correct portal implementation for each desktop. Therefore, the
desktop session needs to depend on the portal that has the best
integration.

The Debian GNOME team has gotten bugs for years from people who
complain that their system doesn't work after disabling installing
recommended packages. Ironically, the fact that you are asking for
this change proves to me that there are people who intend to remove
recommended packages.

I am really struggling to see how the benefit of having one less
package installed outweighs the harm caused by sandboxed apps being
broken.

Thank you,
Jeremy Bícha