[Pkg-octave-devel] Bug#415780: octave2.1: Please upgrade gnuplot dependency from suggests: to recommends:

Jordi Gutierrez Hermoso jordigh at gmail.com
Thu Mar 22 16:24:01 CET 2007


On 21/03/07, Rafael Laboissiere <rafael at debian.org> wrote:
> * Jordi Gutierrez Hermoso <jordigh at gmail.com> [2007-03-21 15:59]:
>
> > Seeing how gnuplot is the default plotting engine in Octave and the one
> > that the Octave team works with the most, I think its priority as an
> > octave dependence should be upgraded from suggests: to recommends:.
>
> I am not sure I agree with you.  Although I understand your arguments,
> remember that Octave can be used without any graphical interface. To give
> you an example, I use Octave mainly to process data in batches.  I do my
> serious graphics for publications with other software (namely R).  Of
> course, YMMV.

Let me provide a couple more arguments. Although it's certainly
possible to use octave without gnuplot (which is why the dependency
certainly shouldn't be depends:), I think it's a fair estimate that
most users of Octave will at some point want some degree of graphical
capabilities ("most" being the operative keyword here for having a
recommends: dependency). There certainly are other options, such as
plplot and whatnot, but Octave by default is configured to use
gnuplot; indeed, attempting a plot command in Octave without gnuplot
installed doesn't give an error about no plotting engine found, but
rather an error about gnuplot not found.

Since the core Octave devs work primarily with gnuplot compatibility
and seem to think it's the best tool for the job, I think the Debian
package should express these wishes more strongly.

Unless, of course, a majority of the DDs for Octave disagree...




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