SUSPECT: Re: mplayer should be moved to universe

[Reinhard Tartler]

Cesare Tirabassi <norsetto at ubuntu.com> writes:

> 3) having the mplayer source in multiverse producing an mplayer (and 
> mplayer-nogui) binary packages in universe and an mencoder binary package in 
> multiverse.

This option has been discussed several times in this mailing list.

I have pretty mixed feelings about this. Mainly because having the
source in multiverse breaks my understanding of the sectioning in
ubuntu. Most importantly is the understanding of self containment. My
point is that having mplayer producing binary packages for universe
would make universe not self contained.

I'm not sure yet if this is really a problem, but I'm inclined to
believe so. Consider the case that a ubuntu derivative (xubuntu,
mythubuntu, etc) decides to include the mplayer binary package on their
live cd. They would still be required to provide and offer the source
package to all software on (in most cases a seperate) CD. This can
become pretty delicate, since now the CD will contain stuff from
multiverse, which is known to be very problematic (at best).

I therefore come to the conclusion that it would be better to not
favor this option. We don't really do seed managment for universe
(yet?), and we certainly don't have concepts for blacklisting pacakges
from CDs and so on. We don't even have means to document these
issues. Keeping self containment follows the path of least surprise and
will save us much hassle in the future.

-- 
Gruesse/greetings,
Reinhard Tartler, KeyID 945348A4