Excessive package interdependency

[Karl DeBisschop]

> The nautilus package dependencies was very deliberately added in order
> to get "full" feature support when someone upgrades. This was done
> when these packages was added to the distro, and without the
> dependency the new features would not be installed on an upgrade. We
> considered it more important that the majority of the Gnome desktop
> users didn't get half a desktop than that someone had to install a
> couple of megs of possibly unnecessary dependencies.
> 
> As long as there is no other way to handle this in the installer I
> stand by my decision.

Recognizing that choosing a good layout involves decisions, I'd stand
with you on that particular choice.

As a matter of practice, the issue is more critical to me with servers,
generally your text-mode apps servers. Not that the servers cannot
handle the extra disk space or clock cycles if the unwanted dependency
were to somehow get invoked. It's a security thing - one layer of our
security policy is minimal installs.

As use say, feature rich is a good default stance for the desktop. For a
server, I think the default stance is opposite, and that should be taken
into account when we look at package interdependency.

(And BTW, I think redhat does this fairly well, though not always
perfectly. I just wanted to add into the conversation my perspective on
a lens that can help in making those inevitable choices).

-- 
Karl DeBisschop <kdebisschop at alert.infoplease.com>