[pkg-boost-devel] Bug#529622: libboost-dev: dependencies should be "suggests", not "recommends"

[j.wuttke]

Package: libboost-dev
Version: 1.34.1-15+b1

In stable as well as in testing, libboost-dev _recommends_ the following:

libboost-doc, libboost-date-time-dev, libboost-filesystem-dev, 
libboost-graph-dev, libboost-iostreams-dev, libboost-program-options-dev, 
libboost-python-dev, libboost-regex-dev, libboost-signals-dev, 
libboost-test-dev, libboost-thread-dev, libboost-wave-dev

Minimal request:

All these dependencies should be downgraded to "suggests".

Rationale:

The policy manual says: "recommends" declares a strong, albeit not
absolute dependency; the recommended packages should be found together
with this one in all but unusual installations.

Concerning libboost-doc: It is all but unusual not to install the
doc package. Other lib-dev packages do not even "suggest" the doc
(e.g. libfftw3-dev).

Concerning libboost-*-dev: Boost is a loose collection of quite
different pieces of software. It is all but unusual to install
only the sublibraries you actually need.

In my case, from the whole of Boost, I need exactly one (1) file:
shared_ptr.hpp. I cannot demand that my users install 13
packages just for one file, so I have to distribute that file
along with my application instead of configuring for a dependency
on libboost-dev.

Full request:

Split libboost-dev into

(a) a dummy package, say boost-dev, used to install the whole of Boost

(b) another package, say libboost-core-dev or libboost-headers-dev or
     libboost-include-dev, that contains the header files currently in
     libboost-dev.

Rationale:

The present bug is clearly due to the unclear logical status of the
libboost-dev package: it contains just one of the many independent
parts of boost, yet its title suggests it's the master package.

Regards, Joachim Wuttke

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