news from Debian packaging

[Jaroslaw Staniek]

2011/9/21 Adrien <adrien.grellier at laposte.net>:

>> It's great that you keep us updated! If I may ensure myself you know
>> it, we're maintaining packaging recommendations in /README.PACKAGERS
>> file of calligra source code.
>
> Yes, we are aware of it, and will provide the -driver packages for the
> databases as requested.

Dear Adrien,
Thanks for the great work!

> But the optional packages for kexi raise some objections here : it seems too
> splitted for us, because calligra-libs alrealy depends on libmarble4-kde4
> and libqt4-webkit and it doesn't bring a significant disk space saving for
> kexi.
>

1. Please anyone correct me if I am wrong but marble shouldn't be hard
dependency of the calligra-libs.
It sounded like it can but this is because the said current
incompletness of README.PACKAGES: Marble is used in one more place:
maps flake plugin for docments in plugins/marblemapshape/. Not used by
Kexi but can be used by all calligra apps.

I think if there is time to do this fix, it's before 2.4 final: could
you please prepare separate package for marble flake shape?
Files: marblemapshape.so marblemapshape.desktop

1.1. kexi-map-form-widget (kformdesigner_mapbrowser.*) cannot be in
calligra-libs otherwise calligra-libs would depend on kexi.
I still recommend to have separate package as stated in README to make
kexi not hard-dependent on marble.

> So we would like to include kexi-web-*-widget and calligra-reports-web-*
> directly in calligra-libs.

2. libqt4-webkit is not used globally in calligra-libs but only in one plugin:
- koreport_webplugin.so - I recommend to have separate package
calligra-reports-web-element as stated in README

2.1. contents of kexi-web-form-widget (kformdesigner_webbrowser.*)
cannot be in calligra-libs otherwise calligra-libs would depend on
kexi.
I still recommend to have separate package as stated in README to make
kexi not hard-dependent on libqt4-webkit.

2.2. webkit is used in braindump/ app as plugin but for some reasone
it can be kept as part of braindump I think. I see no other uses of
webkit, so propose to go with what I recommend above in '2.'

Summing up, regarding plugins:
- maps have three plugins for separate packaging: for kexi forms, for
reporting, for flake
- web has two plugins for separate packaging: for kexi forms, for
reporting (please note that you won't find koreport_webplugin.* files
in 2.4 beta 1, expect to have it for beta 2 on Sep 30).

Please ask if I missed something.

All the above makes Calligra, its libs and apps packages, more light
and modular -- Calligra stands out in the crowd because of that. As
more and more 3rd party dependencies will arrive, IMHO it's good to
have habit of splitting earlier than later.

-- 
regards / pozdrawiam, Jaroslaw Staniek
 http://www.linkedin.com/in/jstaniek
 Kexi & Calligra (kexi-project.org, identi.ca/kexi, calligra-suite.org)
 KDE Software Development Platform on MS Windows (windows.kde.org)