Re: awk: essential virtual package?

[Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>]

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On Mon, 9 Feb 1998, Christian Schwarz wrote:

> Santiago (base-files maintainer) pointed out that the current base-files
> package depends on the virtual package `awk' which makes awk `implicitely'
> essential.
> 
> (With that it is guaranteed, that _some_ awk version is always installed,
> either gawk or mawk or both.) 
> 
> This brings up the following questions:
> 
>  1. Should `awk' be an `essential' package (i.e., is it important enough
> so that other packages don't have to depend on it)? 
> 
>  2. Is there a better solution to tag virtual packages `essential'?
> 
> If this solution turns out to be good, then it should probably be
> documented in the policy manual, and the base-files package should contain
> a note about the `Depends: awk' somewhere in a README.Debian file.

Unfortunately, nobody answered this, so I removed the "Depends: awk"
in base-files 1.6.1, for now.

However, today I went to the mailing list archives and found this message
from Chris Fearnley:

*----------------------------------------------------------------------
To: debian-devel@lists.debian.org
Subject: New gawk and mawk packages uploaded, finally
From: Chris Fearnley <cjf@netaxs.com>
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 18:37:14 -0400 (EDT)

[...] I got new gawk and mawk packages uploaded. [...]
Neither package is essential. Both provide an 'awk' package.
Mawk is section base, priority important. I didn't include section or
priority information on gawk since I'm not sure of its final resting
place.  The base package maintainer should make 'base' depend on the
virtual package 'awk'.  Thus users can use mawk, gawk, or both.  I
recommend mawk because it is fast and small (See Arnold Robbins
comments in the August 1996 issue of Linux Journal).

[...]
*-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The interesting phrase is "The base package maintainer should make 'base'
depend on the virtual package 'awk'". I could not find anything more about
the issue in the archives (perhaps this was discussed even before the
archives started).

It was our intention (at that time) to make awk a "virtual essential
package"? If yes, was it dropped?

There is an atonishing low number of packages having a "Depends: awk".
Should somebody start filing bugs against packages which depends on awk
without declaring the dependency?

Thanks.

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