[diffoscope] diffoscope dependency granularity [was RFC: "Recommended bloat", and how to possibly fix it]

[Fay Stegerman]

[Added diffoscope at lists.reproducible-builds.org to Cc]

* Fay Stegerman <flx at obfusk.net> [2024-11-06 17:43]:
> * Johannes Schauer Marin Rodrigues <josch at debian.org> [2024-11-06 02:28]:
> [...]
> > Have one package diffoscope and one package diffoscope-full and you could even
> > have a package diffoscope-minimal and there you have user-selectable
> > granularity.
> 
> We already have two diffoscope packages for exactly this reason (I work on
> diffoscope and only have -minimal installed myself):
> 
> $ apt-cache show diffoscope/sid | grep -A1 full
>  This is a dependency package that recommends the full set of external tools,
>  to support as many type of files as possible.
> 
> $ apt-cache show diffoscope-minimal/sid | grep -A2 partial
>  This -minimal package only recommends a partial set of the supported 3rd party
>  tools needed to produce file-format-specific comparisons, excluding those that
>  are considered too large or niche for general use.

IMO in the case of diffoscope it could make sense to have multiple tools
metapackages, like a diffoscope-tools-android etc., to both make it easier to
avoid those dependencies if you know you don't need them, but also to easily
install the dependencies for the file formats you do work with.

- Fay