Norman Ramsey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Yes, but autoreconf is part of the autoconf package. > You are therefore shipping a package which includes a command > that doesn't work. I can't believe this is what the authors of the > Debian Policy intended.
I can. Russ Allbery says so, in a message archived at http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.debian.devel.general/123625: > It's allowable for optional functionality or commands that are not the > main purpose of the package to fail even with all Depends installed. I'd > leave the other autotools at Recommends. Russ is one of the maintainers of the Debian policy document and in general someone I respect greatly, so I'm inclined to believe what he says. "Proof by authority" is not a good way to argue, so here is how I interpret some of the wording from policy 7.2 to support specifying the automake package only as a Recommends: The `Depends' field should be used if the depended-on package is required for the depending package to provide a significant amount of functionality. autoreconf is not, in my opinion, a significant amount of the functionality provided by autoconf. It just runs autoconf and, sometimes, some other programs. If autoreconf did not exist at all, then maintainers of software programs that use Autoconf could just write simple shell scripts to replace its functionality. The `Recommends' field should list packages that would be found together with this one in all but unusual installations. I'd say that this is a good match for the relationship between Autoconf and Automake: most of the time, you find Automake installed where you find Autoconf installed, but it's not a strict requirement. Some packages are composed of components of varying degrees of importance. Such a package should list using `Depends' the package(s) which are required by the more important components. The other components' requirements may be mentioned as Suggestions or Recommendations, as appropriate to the components' relative importance. Again, this wording says to me that Recommends is a perfect match for the relationship between autoreconf and Automake: autoreconf is a fairly unimportant component of Autoconf, so the programs that it runs need not be listed in Depends, but may be demoted to the level of Recommends. -- Ben Pfaff http://benpfaff.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
