glib-networking: should not depend on gsettings-desktop-schemas

[Michael Biebl]

On 24.09.2012 02:43, hhebert at SDF.ORG wrote:
> On September 20th, 2012, Michael Biebl wrote:
>> Hi,
> 
> Hi, Michael.
> 
> Sorry to bother you again.
> 
>> glib-networking needs gsettings-desktop-schemas for the
>> org.gnome.system.proxy gsettings schema file.
>> So this dependency is correct and there is nothing to fix.
> 
> Well, glib-networking can be built _without_ gnome proxy:

Sure, but it isn't.

> Of course I can build my own binary package for glib-networking which
> does not depend (by means of gsettings-desktop-schemas) on all the
> gconf/dconf stuff (and thus solve my own problem only).  However, I am
> still concerned about this dependency because it seems to affect other
> people and other packages.  As I pointed out, bug #575020 (and now
> also bug #513848) on gstreamer0.10-plugins-good are related to this
> bug: even if the maintainer of gstreamer0.10-plugins-good removes the
> dependencies on gconf2 and libsoup-gnome2.4-1, the package would still
> depend on gconf/dconf through libsoup2.4-1 (because of
> glib-networking).

Those additional dependencies mean just a bit of "wasted" disk space, if
you don't use it.
There is no runtime cost if you don't actually use dconf as the dconf
daemons are activated on demand via D-Bus activation.
A few MB mean almost nothing today with hard disks having TB sizes.

> It seems that the Debian GNOME Maintainers Team split up
> libsoup(-gnome)2.4-1 for the same reasons at issue here.  That is, to
> avoid that the installation of programs that use gnome-related
> libraries end up installing a lot of _unrelated_ gnome dependencies.

No, the reason why libsoup and libsoup-gnome were split is because of
the way Debian handles library packages and we can handle sonames bumps
in a nicer way.

> As a matter of fact, the --without-gnome-proxy flag to the configure
> script is already included in the debian/rules for the source package
> currently in the archives.  Indeed, I grabbed the sources and built
> the package removing the dependency on gsettings-desktop-schemas and
> the proxy works just fine (through libproxy0).
> 
> Obviously, I understand that not every possible compilation
> configuration deserves a separate binary package in debian.  However,
> I think this particular case do deserve some careful evaluation.
> Given that the --without-gnome-proxy configuration flag is already in
> debian/rules, maybe we don't need to change the compiled binary and
> glib-networking can still use gnome-proxy when it is available?

Splitting out those components into separate binary packages means more
work for us as maintainers for questionable gain.
I'm pretty sure I can find other users which don't like the gnutls
dependency.

Let's see what numbers we are talking about here.

Installing glib-networking in a pristine chroot, I get:

> # apt-get install glib-networking
> The following NEW packages will be installed:
>   dconf-gsettings-backend dconf-service glib-networking glib-networking-common glib-networking-services
>   gsettings-desktop-schemas libdconf0 libffi5 libgcrypt11 libglib2.0-0 libgnutls26 libgpg-error0 libp11-kit0
>   libpcre3 libproxy0 libtasn1-3
> 0 upgraded, 16 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
> Need to get 0 B/3670 kB of archives.
> After this operation, 9421 kB of additional disk space will be used.
                        ^^^^

Installing gsettings-desktop-schemas alone I get:

> # apt-get install gsettings-desktop-schemas
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree       
> Reading state information... Done
> The following extra packages will be installed:
>   dconf-gsettings-backend dconf-service libdconf0
> The following NEW packages will be installed:
>   dconf-gsettings-backend dconf-service gsettings-desktop-schemas libdconf0
> 0 upgraded, 4 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
> Need to get 0 B/294 kB of archives.
> After this operation, 1094 kB of additional disk space will be used.
                        ^^^^

So we are talking about 1MB of additional disk space here. Seriously, I
don't think it's worth the effort.

Cheers,
Michael

-- 
Why is it that all of the instruments seeking intelligent life in the
universe are pointed away from Earth?

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