Dependency loops considered harmful?

[Kevin Kofler]

Jeff Spaleta <jspaleta <at> gmail.com> writes:
> the -libs subpackage situations.. im not sure about.  I think its case
> by case.  Does kde3base-libs need kde3base? I dont know.  Does
> oddjob-libs need oddjob?

In the case of the KDE apps, it's a hack to prevent multilib conflicts: if 
there's a foo-devel which Requires: foo, then foo-devel and foo will both be 
multilibbed, and foo may cause multilib conflicts. If we now split foo into foo 
and foo-libs which Require each other, and have foo-devel Requires: foo-libs 
instead, then suddenly only foo-devel and foo-libs will be multilibbed, foo 
won't (don't ask me why), so we just need to make sure that the libs which need 
multilibbing are in foo-libs and the stuff which causes multilib conflicts is 
in foo (stuff which is the same on both arches can be in either, though the 
non-multilibbed foo is preferred because it saves space). Credits go to Rex 
Dieter for that trick.

        Kevin Kofler