Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2019 10:06:18 +0000
To: Cosmo Borsky <me@cosmoborsky.com>
From: Rasmus Thomsen <oss@cogitri.dev>
Cc: 
 "~alpine/devel@lists.alpinelinux.org" <~alpine/devel@lists.alpinelinux.org>
Reply-To: Rasmus Thomsen <oss@cogitri.dev>
Subject: Re: APKBUILD Optional/Recommended Dependencies
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Hello,

we've had a discussion about that on #alpine-devel some time ago. I'd also =
welcome adding optional dependencies, but I'm unsure how we'd want to desig=
n this, here are some of my ideas:

1.
Have "optional" deps, which are opt-out via a config switch in /etc/apk/* o=
r via a CLI switch. There were some concerns that this would conflict with =
Alpine's goal of being minimal since optional deps might have some signific=
ant weight attached to them.

2.
Have "optional" deps, which have to be opted-into via a config switch in /e=
tc/apk/* or via a CLI switch. This mitigates the previously mentioned probl=
em of having big optional deps pulled in by default, but I personal doubt t=
hat many people would flip the switch to actually make this useful. Maybe a=
 switch in the installer would be sufficient for this though.

3.
Have "optional" and "recommended" dependencies. Optional deps wouldn't be i=
nstalled by default (and could be enabled as previously outlined, as opt-in=
), whereas recommended ones would be opt-out (also via a config/CLI switch)=
. We'd need some guidelines as to what's recommended and what's optional th=
ough and how apk should handle either of them being removed while the main =
package is installed.


I think I personally like the 3rd option the best and it seems to (somewhat=
) align with what you've suggested too.

Rasmus



=E2=80=90=E2=80=90=E2=80=90=E2=80=90=E2=80=90=E2=80=90=E2=80=90 Original Me=
ssage =E2=80=90=E2=80=90=E2=80=90=E2=80=90=E2=80=90=E2=80=90=E2=80=90
On Monday, August 12, 2019 11:16 AM, Cosmo Borsky <me@cosmoborsky.com> wrot=
e:

> I've started to move over to Alpine for my systems, and noticed there's
> nothing in the APKBUILD specification about listing optional dependencies=
.
>
> https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/APKBUILD_Reference
>
> I did a basic search through the mailing lists along with a grep on
> aports, with no results.
>
> Arch Linux's PKGBUILD has an `optdepends` flag that provides a way to
> list packages that provide additional features to the software.
>
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PKGBUILD#optdepends
>
> My initial thoughts would be to add in a variable such as
> `depends_recommended` or `depends_optional` to allow package
> creators/maintainers to list recommended packages.
>
> `apk add --install-recommended pkg`
>
> Has this been discussed before? Does anyone think this would be a useful
> addition?
> I'd be happy to work on a patch to abuild if it could be desired.