Re: Pre-Depends: dpkg (>= 1.15.7.2) for dpkg-maintscript-helper okay?

[Anders Kaseorg <andersk@MIT.EDU>]

On Sat, 5 Mar 2011, Steve Langasek wrote:
> For packages in wheezy/sid, it's redundant because the versioned dependency
> is already satisfied by the version of dpkg in squeeze, i.e., it's met even
> before upgrading to wheezy or sid.

I note that it’s potentially still relevant for the future Ubuntu 10.04 
LTS to 12.04 LTS upgrade, since dpkg-maintscript-helper isn’t in 10.04 LTS 
(dpkg 1.15.5.6ubuntu4.5).  Obviously, Debian is under no obligation to 
make Ubuntu upgrades easier, although it would perhaps be nice if 
packagers had the option of doing so.

> So in this case the pre-dependency should *not* be set, as it only 
> serves to complicate the upgrade path.

If this becomes the consensus of debian-devel, there are two things that 
should probably be changed:

• The section of the dpkg-maintscript-helper(1) about the Pre-Depends 
being “unconditionally required” should be clarified.

• In Debhelper, dh_installdeb shouldn’t add this Pre-Depends automatically 
via ${misc:Pre-Depends} (see #574443).

Anders