Bug#777597: perl-modules: upgrade regression: dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules

[Niko Tyni]

(dropping -release)

On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 11:01:25PM +0100, Niels Thykier wrote:
> On 2015-02-15 12:57, Niko Tyni wrote:
> > On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 10:19:18PM +0200, Niko Tyni wrote:

> >> Relaxing the circular dependency is a workaround that might be doable,
> >> even though it would be 'incorrect'. There are modules in perl that
> >> need others in perl-modules, and vice versa.  However, I count only 21
> >> binary packages in sid [1] that depend on perl-modules but not perl.
> >> As perl is transitively build essential (via dpkg-dev and libdpkg-perl),
> >> build dependencies should not be a concern at all.
> > 
> > There are a few packages that pull in perl indirectly through their other
> > dependencies, which brings the count of binary packages that only depend
> > on perl-modules down to 15:

> > Release team: if we don't find another solution, would you be willing to
> > allow changes in these packages replacing
> >  Depends: perl-modules
> > with
> >  Depends: perl
> > into jessie?

> Yes.  Feel free to do this in parallel with trying to find an
> alternative solution.  The sooner we solve this upgrade issue, the better.

Thanks, and sorry for the lack of action on this bug. I'm struggling
to find any Debian time at the moment.

I doubt we can find any other solution, unless the apt maintainers can
come up with something. So I assume breaking the circular dependency is
the way to go even though I'm not very happy about it.

The next step should probably be to review the packages that would pull
in perl-modules without perl, and see if they would be actually broken
by the change. If they would, we'll need to declare appropriate Breaks
in the perl-modules version that doesn't depend on perl anymore.

Changing packages that don't actually break is a lower priority item,
even if I'd like to see them all changed before the release.

One (somewhat crude) approach would be to file severity:serious bugs
now against all the relevant packages, and then later downgrade any that
turn out to work with just perl-modules.

Possibly this bug should be cloned against the apt package at the wheezy
version. I don't think we know currently if it's still hiding in the
jessie version too?

As things are, circular dependencies seem to have become so fragile that
we might as well forbid them in the policy IMO...

I probably won't be able to work on any of this before the weekend.
Help is certainly welcome.
-- 
Niko Tyni   ntyni at debian.org