Bug#532556: cyrus-sasl2: "you must install some of the modules" -> Depends

[Steve Langasek]

On Tue, Jun 09, 2009 at 10:50:39PM -0500, Dan White wrote:

>> This suggests that the modules should actually be dependencies of the
>> package rather than merely recommends, which is what the Ubuntu package
>> currently does as a result.  Here is a patch that implements this:

>> -Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}
>> +Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, libsasl2-modules (= ${Source-Version}) | libsasl2-modules-sql (= ${Source-Version}) | libsasl2-modules-gssapi-heimdal (= ${Source-Version}) | libsasl2-modules-kerberos-heimdal (= ${Source-Version}), ${misc:Depends}
>>  Conflicts: postfix (<< 2.3.4-3), libsasl2-gssapi-mit (<< 2.1.22), libsasl2-krb4-mit (<< 2.1.22)
>> -Recommends: libsasl2-modules (= ${binary:Version})

> See: http://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=cyrus-sasl2

> Summary:
> libsasl2-2 install base: 98.94%
> libsasl2-modules install base: 54.72%
> libsasl2-modules-sql install base: 1.17%

How does this show anything other than that most users have left the sasl
library in an unusable state on their systems?

> Personally speaking (I'm not a package maintainer), I think these  
> dependencies should belong in the packages that use them (such as  
> cyrus-imapd). libsasl2-2 itself should keep it's dependencies small.

No, they should not.  The whole point of SASL is to abstract away the
authentication methods - server packages should not be depending directly on
particular SASL modules.

> The gssapi and sql packages have a fair amount of 3rd party dependencies  
> that many admins probably won't ever need.

This doesn't appear germane to the patch I've proposed, which has an ORed
dependency requiring only that *some* SASL module be installed.

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek at ubuntu.com                                     vorlon at debian.org