Re: Hard vs. soft deps (Was Re: Proposing dependencies for gnome-games)

["Kalle Vahlman" <kalle vahlman gmail com>]

2007/11/22, David Zeuthen <david fubar dk>:
> Hardly a very constructive response. My take is that the list is not
> accurate; we really should make a distinction between hard and soft
> deps. Software in the GNOME desktop and platform releases should be able
> to build without having the soft deps available; yet it's fine for them
> to fail if it's missing a hard dep.

I don't think it's a meaningful distinction. If a software can build
and operate without the dependancy, it's more like "recommended
software" than a real dependancy. Blessed dependancies should IMO be
always considered hard, there shouldn't be a need to bless them if
they're not...

> Ideally, in the place where we enumerate the soft deps, an explanation
> of what value/features the soft dep adds is listed.

As said, I'd call that list "recommended software" and keep it totally
separate from the dependancy list.

These are of course, just my two small units of currency.

-- 
Kalle Vahlman, zuh iki fi
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