Roy Marples <roy%NetBSD.org@localhost> writes: > On 19/04/2011 16:25, Alistair Crooks wrote: >> On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 06:14:03AM +0000, Roy Marples wrote: >>> Module Name: pkgsrc >>> Committed By: roy >>> Date: Tue Apr 19 06:14:02 UTC 2011 >>> >>> Modified Files: >>> pkgsrc/devel/glib2: Makefile >>> >>> Log Message: >>> gtester-report requires python. >> >> Well... >> >> I've seen the other discussion about "developer laziness", but I don't >> buy into it that much. This now means that every glib2 installation >> requires that we have python installed, for one glib2 function called >> "gtester-report". glib2 is a common pre-req, and maybe even for smaller, >> embedded class machines, and I'm not sure a python interpreter is >> wanted, needed, desirable or useful on such a machine. >> >> Where do we draw the line? What pre-reqs should we require for a >> package just because we can? > > This is a very good question. > On the one hand we have Thomas saying "just add the dependency" > instead of removing an already installed and broken feature and on the > other hand we have you saying otherwise. > > I think I side with Thomas on the whole as it's more "correct". > If someone dislikes the dependency enough, they can split it off into > another package or depend on it via an option. My $0.02: It seems ridiculous for glib2 to depend on python. But maybe that's the way the world is and everyone (authors of glib2-using programs) nos expects this. It's probably easy to make this an option, and it probably ought to be off by default. It's not clear where the burden should be; it might be best to just not have python and lose the feature, and if someone wants it they can make a split package. My point is that always assigning the work to the non-bloat camp does not seem reasonable. In this case, upstream says: Optional Runtime Dependency for the gtester-report program Python-2.6.4 so I think this is pretty strong guidance that it's ok to install glib2 without python - and therefore we should do that.
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