> Pidgin, delivered by SUNWgnome-im-client, has a plugin that depends on one > of the libraries delivered by SUNWevolution-data-server. So saying that > nothing's harmed by removing the latter isn't actually true. It may just > be the case that nothing you care about is harmed. Given that the other > packages are also large packages with lots of plugins, I'm assuming that > the dependency is in those for similar reasons. > > If there's a unique plug-in to Pidgin that requires Evolution libraries, that plug-in should probably be bundled in a separate package. > It's a legitimate complaint, but I'd rather solve this (for now) by either > breaking out into new packages the bits that pull in the more exotic > dependencies. (Once we have full facet support, it could be done that way, > too). > > I'd agree with both sides. Package boundaries and dependencies need to be better thought out, but administrators are not going to be happy with IPS if there isn't a way to turn off dependency checking. Too many third party publishers are going to get it wrong.
Give us the ability to hang ourselves, since you already gave us ZFS snapshots to undo our mistakes. :) > Knowing that work will likely never be complete and never satisfy everyone > anyway, the "force install/uninstall ignoring dependencies" bug is bug 5786. > > Regarding comment 2. If you want use cases of bad dependencies, just look at the stuff on Blastwave. > Danek
