[...] From the maintainer's most recent comments, I believe that the problem is something like:
* user has installed linux-headers and linux-image for kernel version X
* user has built additional modules using DKMS which are installed into the running system
* user upgrades linux-headers to version Y, new modules get rebuilt
* user does not upgrade linux-image from X to Y, confusion results
Having linux-image-Y be a dependency of linux-headers-Y does indeed address this problem, but [...]
* user has installed linux-headers and linux-image for version X
* user has built additional modules using DKMS, installed into the running system
* user upgrades the *kernel image* to version Y but forgets to upgrade the headers
* as a result, new kernel is missing important modules, confusion reigns
This is a real problem - however I think it is *not* one which the change in dependency addresses; even if -headers-Y depends on -image-Y, step 3 above will proceed without any conflicts (because the reverse dependency is not true). I think the only realistic way to address this (assuming we don't want to make -image depend on -headers) would be to have a linux-complete (not sold on the name) package series which depends on corresponding versions of both image and headers packages. Users who regularly build new modules should be encouraged to install this package and have it pull in suitable versions of both headers and image.
Is this correct, Bastian? I'm sorry for taking so long to understand what problem was being addressed here.