[pkg-kde-talk] Re: kdelibs4c2a <-> kdelibs-bin circular dependency - advice requested

Christopher Martin chrsmrtn at debian.org
Wed Jan 18 19:30:35 UTC 2006


On Wednesday 18 January 2006 12:54, Adeodato Simó wrote:
>   Weeell, it'd be an option, but then we have this liiittle section from
>   Policy:
>
>   8.2. Run-time support programs
>   ------------------------------
>
>      If your package has some run-time support programs which use the
>      shared library you must not put them in the shared library package.
>      If you do that then you won't be able to install several versions of
>      the shared library without getting filename clashes.
>
>      Instead, either create another package for the runtime binaries
> (this package might typically be named `<libraryname>-runtime'; note the
> absence of the <soversion> in the package name), or if the development
> package is small, include them in there.
>
>   Note the "must not"...

True, we'd probably want to get Release Team blessing. In this case, I don't 
think that the rationale ("you won't be able to install several versions of 
the shared library") applies, since KDE isn't designed for multiple, 
side-by-side installs; kdelibs4 will never be installable alongside 
kdelibs5. The need for KDE binaries (currently in kdelibs-bin) precludes it 
(amongst many other things). The binaries are so closely tied to the 
libraries in KDE, that the separation doesn't give anyone any sort of 
advantage, added flexibility, etc.

Since they already depend on each other, eveyone has both installed anyway. 
And re-uploading every application with a kdelibs-bin dep added... I don't 
want to do that, though maybe for KDE4 we could try to change the policy... 
but again, it wouldn't actually help anything or result in any improvements 
or advantages.

But yes, we'd need to establish some sort of understanding that KDE was an 
exception to the policy before proceeding. And the KDE team would have to 
support the idea - not just me :)

Chris



More information about the pkg-kde-talk mailing list