[Koha-devel] [Koha-patches] [PATCH] Bug 2176: adding SMS::Send to list of dependencies

[Joe Atzberger]

On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 1:10 PM, MJ Ray <mjr at phonecoop.coop> wrote:

> Requiring modules that we're not actually going to use is also a bug
> in Koha.


I think that misconstrues the situation somewhat.  We don't know what the
end user is going to use.  We have certain requirements to provide certain
capabilities.  It is not inherently wrong for the default installation to be
"maximum capability", even if (for example) one given user never prints
barcodes, and another never authenticates to LDAP.

If the dependency is a reliable, widely compatible perl module, it should be
treated as a Koha dependency, even if the feature it supports is logically
severable.  That is to say, we don't need to break Koha into 100 bits with
frequently overlapping but "optional" dependencies.  Each optional fragment
should exist only because its dependencies are problematic or impossible for
users to install correctly.  Like Schedule::At not working on Win32 (no "at"
command) makes it optional.

Specifically, I don't think the "cost" in HDD space is significant given the
profile of the project right now.  I don't think it is worthwhile to add any
complexity where the main payoff is allowing the user to *potentially* get a
400KB smaller installation.  I can imagine that things would be different if
we were working on an embedded application, or bundling larger deps like
mysql and postgress.

I still support developing a better way of accounting for the optional
dependencies we do have, or migrating them to the kind of perl dependency
that is unobjectionable.
--Joe Atzberger
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