please declare as relaxed dependencies as possible

[Jonas Smedegaard]

Hi Librecat developers (cc Debian Perl team),

In my Debian packaging work ran into trouble today satisfying the 
dependencies of most recent Catmandu::RDF:

RDF::LDF 0.10 has needlessly tight dependencies - e.g. against Clone 
0.38 which has virtually no code changes compared to 0.37.

Too tight dependencies is in my opinion an antipattern - not only in 
Perl modules, declaring relationships between Debian packages is also a 
balancing act sometimes done too sloppily for my taste (but I then do 
other packaging work too sloppily - I am sure no saint!).

Please declare dependencies as reelaxed as possible:

 * If using the ABI introduced in version X, then depend on that.
 * If intermediary version Y is broken then don't tighten to later 
   version Z: it is not for you to deal with that breakage.
 * If version Z is more exciting but in ways not crucial to your use of 
   it, then don't tighten: Allow your users to judge for themselves how
   aggressively they want to chase shiny new stuff, don't force them.


 - Jonas

P.S. I know RDF::LDF is not maintained in the LibreCat context, but some 
of its authors overlap, and I hope you don't mind me posting here to 
avoid such antipattern spilling over to LibreCat modules as well.

P.P.S.  Thanks to Gregor Herrmann in the Debian Perl team for pointing 
out that evidnetly too aggressive Clone dependency.

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

 [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private
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