Package: gtk2-engines-murrine
Version: 0.98.2-1
Tags: patch
I am working to reduce the number of packages that depend on gtk2.
Since gtk3 was declared stable last year with 3.22, there isn't much
reason for app developers to target gtk2. And there hasn't been any
new gtk2 bugfix releases since then.
I expect that it will be quite possible to have a Debian GNOME system
without gtk2 installed "soon". When that happens and a user tries to
install say, numix-gtk-theme, they will be forced to install gtk2
because Numix uses gtk2-engines-murrine which depends on gtk2.
I am proposing a patch (attached to the follow-up email) to drop the
gtk2 dependency from gtk2-engines-murrine. I believe the patch is safe
because the only thing that will try to use the gtk2 engine is a gtk2
app which is required to already depend on gtk2.
Why Not Another Solution?
----------------------------------
Ok, but why don't we split the GTK2 version of numix-gtk-theme to a
separate package?
If numix-gtk-theme-gtk2 is a recommends of numix-gtk-theme, it is not
that much different from being forced to install gtk2. But the big
problem happens if the user choose Numix as their theme, does not have
the Numix GTK2 version installed and then installs a GTK2 app and runs
it.
Because we don't have conditional dependencies in apt ("if
numix-gtk-theme is installed and libgtk2.0-0 will be installed, then
apt should also install numix-gtk-theme-gtk2"), an alternative plan is
to just have libgtk2.0-0 recommend numix-gtk-theme-gtk2. But this
opens another problem: there are lots of GTK2 themes, engines, and
input methods in Debian. I think people would be unhappy if installing
GTK2 would install all of them!
So while my proposal seems a bit unusual, I believe it is the best solution.
Other Info
-------------
I told you earlier that Michael Biebl objected to my proposal. He has
since withdrawn his objection, and I am implementing this proposal in
other packages.
See also https://launchpad.net/bugs/1585903
Thanks,
Jeremy Bicha
