[Slackbuilds-users] Which jack?

[B Watson]

On 12/22/18, Klaatu <klaatu at member.fsf.org> wrote:
>
> For the record, I still think it would be useful for SBo at large to define
> a
> generic JACK dependency which means either JACK or JACK2.

You mean something like what Debian calls a metapackage? The existing
SBo infrastructure hasn't got the concept of it. For it to exist, a
bunch of work would have to be done (decisions to be made, tools and
procedures updated).

For jack 1 vs. 2, it's pretty simple, but I can imagine e.g. package
xyz needs either foo or bar, but if it uses bar, bar must be compiled
with MAGIC=yes set. Or, foo must be compiled with the optional dependency
quux. We'd need a syntax to be able to express that in the .info file, and
a parser for that syntax (to be used in sbopkg/sbotools/etc). Historically
this level of complexity is something the SBo admins have resisted (I
don't speak for them, but I've read previous discussions on this list...)

Also, if I maintain some build that I say depends on
jack-audio-connection-kit, and it gets replaced with a meta-dependency on
jack in general... I now have to spend twice as much time testing my build
(to make sure it really does work with both jacks). If I instead have the
option to keep the dependency on jack-audio-connection-kit, I will, just
to save myself the work. Which would make the meta-dependency pointless
(at least it will if not using it is the path of least resistance).

We have other things like this... various something and something-legacy,
and wxGTK vs. wxPython. Also wx(GTK|Python) version 2.x vs. wxGTK3,
since some things can be built with either.

I take the REQUIRES= to mean "this is what the maintainer tests with". If
something else happens to work, great (and it should ideally be mentioned
in the README, like you do in your builds).