Hi folks! Created an account to quickly comment as the author of hashman.ca :: Repack Zoom .debs to remove the `ibus` dependency
I’m a Debian Developer and hence familiar with the conventions and requirements for Debian packages, aka “.deb” files.
As currently defined, the way that the Zoom Debian packages use relationship fields (such as Depends:) violate the Debian packaging policy, outlined here: 7. Declaring relationships between packages — Debian Policy Manual v4.6.2.0
It states:
DependsThis declares an absolute dependency. …
The Depends field should be used if the depended-on package is required for the depending package to provide a significant amount of functionality.
Emphasis added by me. I would not describe screen control functionality as “significant”, since many Zoom users can use the software without using this feature. I have never used this feature despite using Zoom for over five years. Hence, this dependency relationship would more appropriately be declared as “Recommends:” or “Suggests:” …
RecommendsThis declares a strong, but not absolute, dependency.
The Recommends field should list packages that would be found together with this one in all but unusual installations.
SuggestsThis is used to declare that one package may be more useful with one or more others. Using this field tells the packaging system and the user that the listed packages are related to this one and can perhaps enhance its usefulness, but that installing this one without them is perfectly reasonable.
I would argue that “Suggests:” is probably more appropriate, since it is reasonable to install Zoom without ibus, but “Recommends:” would also be okay.
By declaring ibus as a “Depends:”, it is not possible to install Zoom without repackaging the software to remove the dependency. With either “Recommends:” or “Suggests:”, that will no longer be the case.
Please make my blog post obsolete 
NB: I haven’t volunteered this information previously because I don’t provide free consulting to improve commercial multi-million dollar products, and had hoped my blog provided enough information to get this fixed. If my blog post and forum comment are ultimately helpful to the development team, or if you want to discuss further, please feel free to reach out about my rates.