Re: OF: community packages depending on external packages?

[Olaf Till]

On Wed, Oct 02, 2019 at 12:32:18PM -0500, PhilipNienhuis wrote:
> Olaf Till-2 wrote
> > Hi,
> > 
> > in recent package release submissions, the issue came up whether
> > OF packages in the "community" category should be allowed to depend on
> > packages in the "external" community.
> > 
> > I think not. The "community" category was meant for a tight connection
> > with the development of core Octave. For this, our developer community
> > was meant to have control over the "community" packages. This control
> > is necessary, among others, for namespace issues.
> > 
> > "External" packages, on the other hand, are under the sole control of
> > their individual maintainers. Sometimes, they indirectly depend on
> > m-code developed only for Matlab.
> > 
> > If "community" packages depend on "external" packages, they depend on
> > m-code which is not under the cotrol of our developer community. I
> > think this would be a mistake.
> 
> What will happen now? is this discussion dropped / ignored?
> 
> Given that a new mapping package release is actually ready for a long long
> time now (> 2 years) and it depends on new geometry and matgeom releases I'd
> like to know what to do next.
> 
> If mapping is to become an external package, together with geometry and
> matgeom, fine with me, then users can at least benefit from a new release.

Since I was the only one expressing the opinion that community
packages should not depend on external packages I consider this
opinion to be overruled.

As for the external package matgeom, I indicated at the release forum
that I see an issue which prevents me from publishing the release. (I
didn't look further into this package as yet to see if this is the
only issue it has.)

As for the geometry package, I thought it was clear that it can't be
released as long as the matgeom package, on which it depends, is not
released. (I didn't look further into the geometry package as yet to
see if this is the only issue with it.)

Olaf

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