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From: ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic =?utf-8?Q?Court=C3=A8s?=)
Subject: Re: Optional runtime dependencies in Guix
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 10:38:34 +0100
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	(Gammel Holte's message of "Sun, 11 Jan 2015 15:38:38 +0000")
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To: Gammel Holte <gammel.holte@gmail.com>
Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org

Gammel Holte <gammel.holte@gmail.com> skribis:

> For example, consider samtools, a package I use daily and that was recent=
ly
> committed to Guix:
>
> http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/gnu/packages/bioinformatic=
s.scm#n139
>
> It forces me to install python. In contrast, consider Arch AUR's package:
>
> https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/samtools/

>From looking at the page above, it seems that it would be feasible to
simply move varfilter.py to a different output.  That way, users would
be able to install the default output (which doesn=E2=80=99t depend on Pyth=
on),
or the =E2=80=9Cpython=E2=80=9D output.  Ricardo, WDYT?

> An extreme example of this is weechat:
>
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2014-09/msg00229.html
>
> Compare with:
>
> https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/i686/weechat/
>
> Guix version forces the user to install all interpreters for running
> user-defined scripts to extend Weechat. These are quite many: lua, perl,
> python, ruby, tcl (and guile).

Yes, I hadn=E2=80=99t noticed this and I agree this is problematic.

Kevin, any idea on how to split things?

As I wrote before, there=E2=80=99s no one-size-fits-all recipe to address t=
he
problem, just a couple of usable patterns (basically separate outputs or
separate packages.)  So we need to address this mostly on a case-by-case
basis, and also probably clarify this in the packaging guidelines.

Thanks,
Ludo=E2=80=99.