[Fedora-packaging] library dependency strawman (of doom?)

[Jason L Tibbitts III]

>>>>> "MM" == Matthew Miller <mattdm at fedoraproject.org> writes:

MM> What if, instead of requiring separate, unbundled packaging of
MM> dependencies the first time they're required, they instead get
MM> documented somewhere. The _second_ time something needs the same
MM> thing, the packagers for both the first and second package work
MM> together to split out that dep into its own package.

FPC has, on a couple of instances, approved this kind of thing,
but. really it doesn't work well.  Why?  Because you can't depend on the
maintainers of the other package to do much of anything.  Now you have
either the second package held up because someone else doesn't want to
expend the effort, or you have the bits properly unbundled but the
first package never updates (or gets pulled from the distro) because
nobody wants to put in the work to unbundle.

MM> It would also mean fewer unloved packages which were created solely
MM> to fill a dep need — and maybe even orphaned if that need changes.

I don't see how that's a benefit, really.  A separate package with a
separate upstream that can be tracked and updated almost automatically
with all of our fancy upstream release monitoring tools, versus some
unloved bundled of bits that is completely ignored because someone just
imported some random version once and then never touched it?  I know
which one I'd pick.

In fact, I believe the existence of these new upstream release
monitoring tools makes the argument for unbundling even stronger.

 - J<