Policy for Dependencies

[Christoph Cullmann]

Hi,

>> Ok, after the reasonable criticisms of making the sound stuff optional in
>> knotifications per default:
>> 
>> Could we have some ECM switch like (name is just an example):
>> 
>> option(KDE_ENABLE_MINIMAL_DEPENDENCIES "Will switch as many dependencies
>> from required to optional as possible, this might lead to a loss of
>> functionality." OFF)
>> 
>> Based on that option, we can make stuff optional and we will have best of
>> two worlds:
>> 
>> 1) no by accident loss of functionality and bug reports (like feared by
>> some, and I must confess that might be realistic) 2) an easy to use
>> solution for people wanting minimal dependencies as this is "one" switch
>> and it will work on all operating systems
> 
> I'm not sure whether it's the best solution. The problem you try to fix with
> it is distros breaking packaging. I agree with Martin K that this is a huge
> problem and that it will happen - since the automation of packages I also
> experienced that nobody looks at the output of optional dependencies and the
> packaging breaks.
> 
> Given that I don't think we want an ENABLE_MINIMAL_DEPENDENCIES switch, but
> rather a mode which will break if not found during distro builds.
> 
> Something like a "STRONGLY_RECOMMENDED" which is turned into "REQUIRED" if
> distros build (and maybe also kdesrc-build), but is optional if anybody else
> builds.
> 
> But I'm not sure how this could be done. Anyway, long story short: I think we
> need the other way around. It should be optional by default, but should be
> turned into stricter requirements on the linux distro case.
I would be happy with such an solution, too.
But I am not that optimistic that this is easy to achieve, how to ensure all distros
turn this magic on?

The opposite direction at least would avoid the distro breakage and still allow
optional compiles for the "3rd party wants less dependencies" or "other platform wants
less dependencies" use case.

Even if not optimal, some ENABLE_MINIMAL_DEPENDENCIES would in my eyes still better than
the current situation, were either we have optional stuff that will make us unhappy because
of broken distro packages or the devs unhappy that need to patch dependencies out on their own.

e.g. Kåre did in most cases exactly that for the Windows build (git at git.kde.org:scratch/sars/kate-windows),
which IMHO is sad.

Greetings
Christoph

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