Question about runtimes

[Daniel Wilkins]

On Mon, Aug 05, 2024 at 03:05:13PM +0100, Mark Naughton wrote:
> No, I mean if I install a calculator that uses the GNOME runtime, why
> not just bring in the parts of the runtime that the calculator needs? On
> my system it seemed to bring in 700mb of unneeded dependencies. If I
> install another program that shares that same runtime, then it could
> bring it what it needs on an as-need basis.

Because then every file in the runtime would need its own list of
dependencies. Your calculator "only" needs libfoo, but libfoo needs
libbar, libbar needs libbaz and libquux, etc.

If every file in every package has to maintain its own dependency list
then it's not really a package anymore.


(btw I'm on list, no need to cc)