packages with odd file-dependencies.

[Barry K. Nathan]

On Wed, Apr 28, 2004 at 01:20:51PM -0400, seth vidal wrote:
> so here is what I found - some of these are odd:
> dia-0.92.2-3.1.i386.rpm
>  /usr/share/desktop-menu-patches/redhat-diagrams.desktop
>   this file is part of redhat-menus and apparently nothing else - why
> not just depend off of that?

What if redhat-menus is renamed to something else? Isn't it really
better to depend on the file and not the package containing that file?
(Actually, now that I think about it, you could make the same argument
in the other direction -- maybe the file's name could end up being
changed too. Either way, I don't see a significant advantage of one over
the other.)

> gnome-session-2.6.0-1.i386.rpm
>  /usr/share/pixmaps/splash/gnome-splash.png - in fedora-logs

I think you meant fedora-logos. However, remember that Red Hat ships two
different lines of distributions; the other line ships this file in
redhat-logos, not fedora-logos.

> httpd-2.0.49-2.i386.rpm
>  /usr/share/magic.mime - part of file - why not depend on that?

Maybe it actually uses just that one file in particular? IMO it's
immediately obvious why httpd would need this file, but if it depended
on the "file" package instead, my first reaction would be "huh?"

> inn-2.3.5-9.i386.rpm
>  /usr/lib/news/lib/innshellvars.pl - this file is actually provided by
> inn. :)

Ok, now that's weird...

-Barry K. Nathan <barryn at pobox.com>