Hi there! On Sun, 05 Dec 2010 17:28:37 +0100, Bill Allombert wrote: > It seems that neither m17n-contrib nor m17n-db actually needs libm17n-0 to > work, > so it should be fine. The Recommends are OK thought I do not find them > useful here (by itself, libm17n-0 does not provide any functionnality without > at > least one program linked against libm17n-0).
Actually, the Depends: were added to fix #599643 (cc:ing the original submitter), which I was re-opening when I found out it via an upgrade. I consider it a bug that a library depends on a database to be used. First, because the database could be provided *directly* by the sysadmin (thus without the need for the exact copy provided by the dependent packages) and, second, because it means that a program linked to that library will require the dependent packages. The last point is an interesting one, which the original submitter summarizes in the bug report: Message-ID: <20101011005324.gc2...@feather> URL: <http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=599643#13> I will quote only the last part of his post, however please read it entirely before replying. On Mon, 11 Oct 2010 02:53:25 +0200, Josh Triplett wrote: > But again, it seems questionable why someone would want to cripple m17n > by not installing those packages. Similarly, someone *could* omit key > pieces of emacs, such as major modes for uncommon languages, and put > them in a separate package with a Recommends; however, those represent a > sufficiently expected part of the functionality of emacs that they need > a Depends-level "always installed" relationship. > > By contrast, gdm3 only Recommends xserver-xephyr, because it can use > xephyr to implement the nested login functionality, but people wouldn't > consider gdm3 *broken* without that functionality. Emacs is not *broken* without the m17n-contrib and m17n-db packages, it is one of its *functionalities* which is broken, quite a different thing, mostly the same as the original submitter gdm3 example. Recommends: are there exactly for that, especially given that "Emacs + libm17n-0 + m17n-contrib + m17n-db" *does not work*, as explained by the Debian maintainer in reply to the post above: Message-ID: <[email protected]> URL: <http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=599643#18> On Tue, 12 Oct 2010 11:41:59 +0200, Harshula wrote: > On Sun, 2010-10-10 at 17:53 -0700, Josh Triplett wrote: >> On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 03:43:27AM +1100, Harshula wrote: >> > You've raised an interesting question. My initial reaction is Emacs >> > should Depend on both libm17n-0 and m17n-db. Emacs appears to use >> > libm17n and m17n-db for complex text layout. libm17n contains the C API >> > and m17n-db contains the layout rules. So without both packages Emacs >> > will not function correctly. For example, copy the following Sinhala >> > text "කොහොමද" into Emacs with both libm17n-0 and m17n-db installed. Take >> > a screenshot. Then remove m17n-db and copy the text into Emacs and see >> > the difference. >> >> Interesting. It didn't make a difference with the default font I >> normally use in Emacs (Neep Alt), but with DejaVu Sans Mono the first >> character moved before the quote. Does that sound like the correct >> behavior? > > No, that does not sound correct. I forgot to mention one important step, > install ttf-sinhala-lklug. According to the reasoning used to solve #599643, why does libm17n-0 not depend also on ttf-sinhala-lklug? It does not even Recommends: it... Please, reconsider the Depends: on m17n-contrib nor m17n-db, which should stay as Recommends:, and add an hint into the libm17n-0 Description: about the needed packages, both data *and* font(s). Thx, bye, Gismo / Luca
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