- Package:
- developers-reference
- Source:
- developers-reference
- Submitter:
- Thomas Hood
- Date:
- 2019-10-05 13:45:07 UTC
- Severity:
- wishlist
Many -dev packages have copies of files that are in the runtime
library packages on which they Depend. According to policy it
is permissible in such cases (Depends and built from same
source) to include symlinks instead of copies. Since using
symlinks saves space, it seems appropriate to recommend that
practice. So I propose this change:
8.5. Dependencies between the packages of the same library
----------------------------------------------------------
Typically the development version should have an exact version
dependency on the runtime library, to make sure that compilation
and linking happens correctly. The `${Source-Version}'
substitution variable can be useful for this purpose.
+ In such cases the size of the -dev package can be reduced by
+ including symlinks to, instead of duplicates of, files in the
+ runtime library package's /usr/share/doc subdirectory. If
+ the -dev package's /usr/share/doc subdirectory does not
+ contain files not present in the latter directory then the
+ directory itself can be a symlink. (See section 12.3.)
reassign 318637 developers-reference
thanks
Hi,
This sounds like this snippet is trying to point developers to
good practice (reducing dsk space requirements). That seems like a
good fit for the refernec, whish is a good practices document, but
not the technical policy, which is trying to be a minimalistic you
/must/ do this stuff kinda document.
BTW, _why_ are these -dev packages duplicating files already
in a package they depend on?
manoj
control: tags -1 wontfix thanks hi, in 2005 manoj wrote to this bug "BTW, _why_ are these -dev packages duplicating files already in a package they depend on?" and I have to say, I'm wondering the same and don't think this is true anymore, so I'm tagging this wontfix. Please correct me if I'm wrong ;)------------------------------------------------------------------------------- holger@(debian|reproducible-builds|layer-acht).org PGP fingerprint: B8BF 5413 7B09 D35C F026 FE9D 091A B856 069A AA1C
control: tags -1 wontfix thanks hi, in 2005 manoj wrote to this bug "BTW, _why_ are these -dev packages duplicating files already in a package they depend on?" and I have to say, I'm wondering the same and don't think this is true anymore, so I'm tagging this wontfix. Please correct me if I'm wrong ;)------------------------------------------------------------------------------- holger@(debian|reproducible-builds|layer-acht).org PGP fingerprint: B8BF 5413 7B09 D35C F026 FE9D 091A B856 069A AA1C