[aur-general] Should "base" packages be listed as dependencies?

[Baptiste Jonglez]

So, I didn't think such a technical question would spark so much passion!
Maybe this discussion should indeed go to arch-dev-public.

In the meantime, I see 4 positions emerge from the discussion:

1) packages in "base" *should* be explicitely listed as dependencies
   (either for mere "technical correctness", or because of bloat, i.e. not
   everyone wants/needs all packages from "base")
  
2) packages in "base" *should not* be listed as dependencies (because it
   is assumed that all Arch Linux systems have all packages from "base"
   already installed)

3) it depends on the maintainer (i.e. there are no guidelines on this question)

4) it depends on the base package in question (e.g. it would be acceptable
   to depend on glibc, but not on systemd)


I get the impression that 3) is the current status quo.  I find 4) to be
quite strange and subjective, but it could be done (e.g. only allow
library dependency such as glibc, or allow all dependencies except a few
like systemd).

I have two more arguments in favour of 1) or 4), related to technical
correctness:

- when a new version of glibc is released, which packages should be
  rebuilt?  Without complete dependency information, I don't see how it's
  possible to know.

- Assume that all "base" packages are supposed to already be installed,
  and thus no other package depends on "base" packages.  When a new
  package X is added to "base", how is an already-running system supposed
  to pick it up if no dependency pulls it in?

Baptiste

On Wed, Mar 22, 2017 at 09:45:13PM +0100, Baptiste Jonglez wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I was pretty confident that "base" packages should be listed as
> dependencies in PKGBUILDs, i.e. they are not assumed to be installed (as
> opposed to "base-devel" for build dependencies).
> 
> This belief is reinforced by the fact that namcap gives dependencies error
> about packages such as glibc (which is in "base"):
> 
>     E: Dependency glibc detected and not included (libraries ['usr/lib/libc.so.6', 'usr/lib/libcrypt.so.1'] needed in files ['usr/lib/libcli.so.1.9.7'])
> 
> But I could not find any documentation about this.  On the contrary, this
> wiki page [1] says the opposite:
> 
>     In addition, the base group is assumed to be installed on *all* Arch
>     systems.
> 
> Am I missing something obvious?
> 
> Thanks,
> Baptiste
> 
> [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Makepkg#Usage


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