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Source: s-nail
Version: 14.9.25-1
Severity: important
Tags: patch

Dear Maintainer,

the s-nail package needlessly depends on the base-files package, which
is an essential package installed on all debian systems.

Please remove this dependency. Patch attached. Thanks.

diff --git a/debian/control b/debian/control
index f48f014..fd56c1f 100644
--- a/debian/control
+++ b/debian/control
@@ -19,7 +19,6 @@ Package: s-nail
Architecture: any
Multi-Arch: foreign
Depends:
- base-files (>= 2.2.0),
${misc:Depends},
${shlibs:Depends},
Replaces:

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2025-03-07 02.05, cacin@allfreemail.net wrote:

Source: s-nail
Version: 14.9.25-1
Severity: important
Tags: patch

Dear Maintainer,

the s-nail package needlessly depends on the base-files package, which
is an essential package installed on all debian systems.

Please remove this dependency. Patch attached. Thanks.

Hi and thanks for the patch!

The dependency on base-files is not entirely useless as it is a
*versioned* dependency. However, the required version is so old that we
can safely drop it, even considering backports.

How would you like the change to be attributed in the packaging
repository git history [1] and in the package changelog? Is just "cacin@allfreemail.net" fine?

The best way to answer this question is by converting the patch you
submitted into a salsa MR against [1]. This way we'll also get CI to run
on your change before merging.

Cheers,

Paride

[1] https://salsa.debian.org/debian/s-nail

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On 2025-03-11 12.23, cacin@allfreemail.net wrote:

The issue and patch are so trivial that I don't want any attribution,
I'd just like to see it dealt with, feel free to fix it all under your
own name. Thanks.

Out of curiosity: did you find the extra dependency actually annoying in
some scenario, or are you just doing QA cleanups on packages?

To be clear: I welcome the change, I'd just like to know if there's a
use case I'm missing.

Thanks,

Paride

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Source: s-nail
Followup-For: Bug #1099716

It started as trying to remove dependencies on usr-is-merged or usrmerge packages, so that they can be removed from trixie, because /usr-merge is finished in trixie.

base-files provides usr-is-merged so it was caught as a dependency for
the packages I checked. And for those packages I checked if base-files dependency is still needed (for backports as a fallback, which is a
little bit of an antipattern, but is sometimes used), and if not then it
can be removed as a dependency too.

And if base-files is removed as a dependency from all packages, then
it's more likely the Provides: usr-is-merged can be dropped from
base-files in the debian release after trixie.

I can see why it could be seen as QA cleanup on packages, and I agree
with that assessment. I'm not aware of any immediate issue resulting
from keeping the base-files dependency.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Source: s-nail
Followup-For: Bug #1099716

The issue and patch are so trivial that I don't want any attribution,
I'd just like to see it dealt with, feel free to fix it all under your
own name. Thanks.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)