Optional dependencies enforced via setup.py

[icp1994]

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The README mentions all dependencies apart from python itself being optional. But the setup.py pulls in everything from requirements.txt under install_requires. Does this mean downstream distributors who builds from source are recommended to patch the setup.py itself for a dependency-free installation?

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[pukkandan]

We have to, due to #5482 (comment)

Does this mean downstream distributors who builds from source are recommended to patch the setup.py itself for a dependency-free installation?

Are you asking whether it's recommended to install without dependencies? If so, no. Unless there is reason to¹, it is recommended to install the dependencies too².

But if you do want dependency-free install and is using pip³ in backend, I suppose only current option is to patch setup.py

Do you have any suggestions what I could do to make it easier?

Footnotes

1. We don't even pin deps to avoid package conflicts. Any other reason? ↩

2. Remember, not all deps are in requirements.txt - ffmpeg/ffprobe are highly recommended ↩

3. All PMs should be using pipx and not pip imho, but that's another topic ↩

[icp1994]

Hi, thanks for the pointers. I don't have any suggestions, was just curious why those optional deps were "default".

[RuRo]

@pukkandan Hi. Do you think, you can revisit this issue? Please, either declare these dependencies as non-optional or (preferably, imho) remove the optional dependencies from install_requires in setup.py (at least by default, you can re-enable them when building the wheels for PyPI for example).

Currently, the package metadata is wrong and asking downstream distributors to patch it is kind of weird. I submitted a bug report to the Arch Linux maintainers asking to patch the requirements.txt like you are suggesting, and they (very understandably) refused.

Thanks.

[pukkandan]

Sorry, but we want default installs (from pip or source) to have these dependencies included. Unless some way to do pypa/setuptools#1139 becomes available, it is not feasible to remove them.