[Slackbuilds-users] REQUIRES="%README%"

[David Spencer]

Hi folks,

Is this worth tightening up?  I'm not going to name specific
SlackBuilds, because that would be impolite and ungrateful.  But maybe
it would be nice if we all tried a bit harder to be consistent.
Thoughts?

The rule is: "Listing '%README%' as part of REQUIRES indicates more
information about optional requirements is available in the README".

There seem to be two main interpretations of this:

(1) If there are any optional dependencies mentioned in the README, use %README%

(2) If there are some complicated dependencies that are explained in
the README (for example, you *must* choose one of two alternative
dependencies), then use %README%, but there is no need to use %README%
if the optional dependencies are just optional in a normal sort of
way, because everyone should read the README anyway.

I tend to do (2), but I think I should probably be doing (1) instead.

However, there are quite a lot of SlackBuilds that go beyond these two
interpretations.

Sometimes there are no optional deps in the README, and it is being
used to draw attention to other setup stuff in the README, for example
groupadd and useradd commands.  Ok, I can understand that
'requirements' can be interpreted wider than just 'more packages', but
this isn't done consistently.

Sometimes it's being used to draw attention to *reverse* dependencies
listed in the README, which is really not necessary. :-(

Sometimes there's nothing significant in the README at all :-(

What do we -- users and maintainers -- think about this?  Is it worth
being more consistent?

Best regards to all
-D.