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Re: Separate lib and executable packages?

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On Saturday, February 8, 2020 2:50:54 PM EST Gordon Ball wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 08, 2020 at 02:42:11AM +0000, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> > On February 7, 2020 3:59:46 PM UTC, Mattia Rizzolo <mattia@debian.org> 
wrote:
> > >On Fri, Feb 07, 2020 at 11:36:00AM +0000, Gordon Ball wrote:
> > >> I wonder if this split really makes sense; it feels like adding the
> > >> overhead of an extra binary package to avoid not having a very small
> > >> file in /usr/bin if you're only planning to use the library.
> > >> 
> > >> Does it seem reasonable to drop the executable package and just make
> > >
> > >it
> > >
> > >> a Provides: of the library package? (and is there any potential
> > >
> > >breakage
> > >
> > >> here that I'm overlooking)
> > >
> > >Maybe not for ipython3, since that's very much tied to
> > >python3-ipython3.
> > >
> > >BUT, as a user (even forgetting I'm also a DD) I was hurt many times by
> > >executables in python-foo but wanting to use python3-foo instead, or by
> > >executables that moved from python-foo to python3-foo and I had to fix
> > >my own deployments, and whatnot.
> > >
> > >We are not going to have a python4 anytime soon (hopefully never), but
> > >I
> > >think that keeping a separate binary package makes sense for almost all
> > >cases I can think of packages shipping executables under /usr/bin/.
> > 
> > Except: Every time we add a binary to Debian it impacts everyone.  The
> > packages file gets bigger and so updates get slower.  Although there's no
> > firm rule, the FTP Masters discourage addition of trivially small
> > packages and so your package might be rejected.
> Perhaps this is worth making an explicit recommendation for new packages
> of this type, given that anything new _should_ be python3-only and we
> hope for at least some time before another python major version becomes
> an issue. "Packages which are primarily libraries but include an
> executable should avoid multiple binary packages without good reason"? -
> At least in the above linked style guide, since it's not normative
> policy in any case.

Sounds reasonable to me.  It's a wiki, so I'd say go for it.

> For packages already split (eg, ipython3, python3-ipython), having
> thought a bit more I suspect it's probably more trouble than it is worth
> to drop a handful of binary packages - I'm wondering about eg, what
> happens if the executable package is manually installed and the library
> hence flagged as automatically installed; if the former than becomes a
> Provides: of the latter, is it immediately a candidate for autoremoval?

Yes.  Removing the existing cases where it might not really be needed can be 
problematic.  I think it generally makes sense to leave them be.

Scott K

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Separate lib and executable packages? Gordon Ball <gordon@chronitis.net> - 2020-02-07 12:50 +0100
  Re: Separate lib and executable packages? Ondrej Novy <novy@ondrej.org> - 2020-02-07 13:50 +0100
  Re: Separate lib and executable packages? Mattia Rizzolo <mattia@debian.org> - 2020-02-07 17:10 +0100
    Re: Separate lib and executable packages? Scott Kitterman <debian@kitterman.com> - 2020-02-08 04:20 +0100
      Re: Separate lib and executable packages? Ondrej Novy <novy@ondrej.org> - 2020-02-08 14:00 +0100
        Re: Separate lib and executable packages? Scott Kitterman <debian@kitterman.com> - 2020-02-08 15:30 +0100
      Re: Separate lib and executable packages? Gordon Ball <gordon@chronitis.net> - 2020-02-08 21:00 +0100
        Re: Separate lib and executable packages? Ondrej Novy <novy@ondrej.org> - 2020-02-08 21:20 +0100
          Re: Separate lib and executable packages? Gordon Ball <gordon@chronitis.net> - 2020-02-11 11:00 +0100
        Re: Separate lib and executable packages? Scott Kitterman <debian@kitterman.com> - 2020-02-09 04:10 +0100

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