Depends: hicolor-icon-theme: shouldn't it be Recommends: instead?

Abstract

The non-data packages currently having an absolute dependency on
hicolor-icon-theme should consider downgrading it to Recommends:
at the least. The list, and the explanation, are below.


Chapter I
imagemagick

Recently, Depends: hicolor-icon-theme was added to the
imagemagick's control file, which triggered my curiosity: does
it provide something that wasn't needed (or was missed) by the
previous versions of the package, but is strictly necessary to
run the newer ones?

Indeed, it doesn't.

To prove it, I've made a trivial control file for
equivs-build(1):

Package: k1o7mjuxokuwghktzugfno8qib
Provides: hicolor-icon-theme
Description: Pretend that hicolor-icon-theme is installed (dummy)
A dummy package pretending to provide hicolor-icon-theme.

Having hicolor-icon-theme removed and this one installed, I've
proceeded to install imagemagick. Unsurprisingly, I've found
/no/ issues with either installing or running it. (I've tried
display(1), but I'm quite sure that there won't be any issues
with convert(1), either.)


Chapter II
A few packages more

Well, I've wondered, is this a singular issue with Depends:
hicolor-icon-theme, somehow creeped into Debian Wheezy “just
prior” to its scheduled release?

Indeed, it isn't.

I've examined the reverse dependencies of hicolor-icon-theme:

$ apt-cache rdepends --no-suggests --no-recommends \
hicolor-icon-theme
hicolor-icon-theme
Reverse Depends:
viridian
tango-icon-theme
synaptic
rabbitvcs-core
perlpanel
oxygen-icon-theme
openteacher
kdelibs5-data
imagemagick
gnome-phone-manager
gnome-icon-theme-symbolic
gnome-icon-theme-extras
gnome-icon-theme
flush
d-feet
$

Well, it doesn't seem suspicious for anything *-icon-* and
*-data to depend on an icon theme, but what about the rest?

For a start, I've omitted rabbitvcs-core and viridian, and
considered d-feet, flush, openteacher, perlpanel, and synaptic.
Unsurprisingly, all of them were able to install and run, but
while openteacher is seemingly unaffected by the absence of the
data in question, the rest have had obvious issues: almost all
of the icons were absent, resulting in blank space on the GUI,
missing controls, and warnings to stderr (stdout?)


Conclusion

Since there're (as it seems) virtually no issues with running
imagemagick without a “real” hicolor-icon-theme installed, my
suggestion would be to downgrade the dependency to Suggests: (or
Recommends:, if there's some point I've missed.)

As for the other packages considered, my suggestion would be to
downgrade the dependencies to Recommends: (or, for openteacher,
to Suggests:, if it's indeed unaffected.)

Unless there'd be any objections, I'll consider filing a bug
against imagemagick, and perhaps the other aforementioned
packages as well.


Post Scriptum

Curiously enough, the only “application” package having a
Recommends: dependency on hicolor-icon-theme is cheese.

FSF associate member #7257 http://sf-day.org/


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