Bug#950440: debian-policy: Confusing conflation of Essential:yes w/ Priority:required

[Santiago Vila <sanvila@debian.org>]

El 18/12/22 a las 15:34, Chris Hofstaedtler escribió:
> Package: mawk
> Version: 1.3.4.20200120-3.1
> Priority: required
>
> base-files Pre-Depends awk, mawk Provides awk
> Could become Priority: optional?

I can answer for that one. A long time ago, we decided to ensure
that some implementation of awk was always present in the system,
making awk to be both "essential" and "virtual". The Pre-Depends
of base-files on awk (being base-files essential itself) is the way
to implement such assurance that there is always some awk installed.

The rationale is that we made perl essential as an available
scripting language (via perl-base), and not doing the same
with "good old awk" as an essential scripting language would be awkward.

The mawk package has priority required so that deboostrap does not have to
"decide" which awk to install in a new system.

btw: I'm not sure if this bug is related or not with the fact that debootstrap
installs all required packages by default. I'd like to make a policy proposal
saying tools like deboostrap should try not to install packages which are
not build-essential. Does anybody remember if there is already a debian-policy
bug for that?

[ For the purpose of achieving sane chroots, we don't need to modify so much priorities ].

Thanks.