Re: Bug#681834: network-manager, gnome, Recommends vs Depends

[Tollef Fog Heen <tfheen@err.no>]

]] Ian Jackson 

> Tollef Fog Heen writes ("Re: Bug#681834: network-manager, gnome, Recommends vs Depends"):
> > Ian Jackson :
> > > It seems to me that our objectives must include:
> > [...]
> > 
> > > 3. Users who deliberately removed network-manager in squeeze (which
> > >    they will generally have done by deliberately violating the
> > >    Recommends from the gnome metapackage) should not have to do
> > >    anything special to avoid it coming back in wheezy.
> > 
> > A somewhat tangential question here – is this a general requirement?
> > Doesn't that prevent maintainers from (worst case) ever upgrading
> > Recommends to Depends?  I'm worried about what precedent this would be
> > setting.
> 
> In a case where the underlying dependency has genuinely become a
> Depends because of changes to the actual software, then it is fine to
> strengthen the dependency and require users to either accept the
> regression compared to their previous situation, or to deinstall the
> parent package.

Am I understanding you correctly in that your answer is «A Recommends
can never be upgraded to a Depends for a metapackage»?

(Essentially the same question as I asked beforehand, but where I've
specified I'm only talking about metapackages.)

-- 
Tollef Fog Heen
UNIX is user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are