Bug 56686

Summary:	RPM Enhancement: Dependency: Suggestion and Recommented
Product:	[Retired] Red Hat Linux	Reporter:	Need Real Name <burnus>
Component:	rpm	Assignee:	Jeff Johnson <jbj>
Status:	CLOSED WONTFIX	QA Contact:
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	low
Version:	4.2	Keywords:	FutureFeature
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Enhancement
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2001-11-24 18:16:05 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Need Real Name 2001-11-24 18:15:56 UTC

The present RPM is rather well suited for installing, but those two items
from Debian's DEB would be useful:

a) Recommondation
   A recommendation says a package will almost always need to have another 
   package installed.

b) Suggestions
   A suggestion says a package may sometimes work better if another package 
   is installed. The user can just be informed of this as a FYI.

This data is not for the rpm program itself ment, but rather for the use
with a installation program (or for inspection of an RPM). This data can
also be provided in a text form (Description) but listing packages with
version in a "Required" format is more useful.

Besides this config advantage it also make DEB<->RPM converting easier.

Comment 1 Jeff Johnson 2001-11-26 12:56:13 UTC

Without well defined semantics for how these tags are to be used,
I will not add. I point out that "almost always" and "sometimes works better"
are not exactly well defined. There are many other ways to supply
installation hints of this sort without adding to packaging. Simply
informing the user is not sufficiently well defined, as rpm is
designed to minimize user interaction, and presumes that the
user knows what to do with any information presented.

Without a clear definition of how the tags are to be used by rpm,
making deb -> rpm conversion easier is premature as well.