Re: On essential packages and dependencies

[Enrique Zanardi <ezanardi@ull.es>]

On Fri, Mar 06, 1998 at 02:27:10PM +0000, James Troup wrote:
> Enrique Zanardi <ezanardi@ull.es> writes:
> 
> > If an Essential package depends on other packages, shouldn't those
> > other packages be tagged Essential as well?
> 
> Certainly *not*, when the other packages are libraries.

You are right, and that's already in the policy manual. Let me reformulate 
the question:

If an Essential package depends on other non-libraries packages,
shouldn't those other packages be tagged Essential as well?

As I said, currently, gzip (Essential) depends on debianutils 
(non-Essential). 

>                                                          [I won't give
> my opinion when the other packages are not libraries on the grounds
> that I'll probably end up in yet another flamewar.]

But that's the question I asked, and I think it's a technically important
one. (I don't understand why you find it "flame-attractive").

I don't know why gzip depends on debianutils, because I can't find any
use of debianutils files in gzip administrative scripts, so I suppose
they are used by gzip programs. 

But if I'm right, that means that if J.R.User removes debianutils, gzip
will stop working, and as gzip is an Essential package, and it is needed
for such an important feature as package extraction, his system will be
FUBAR. So, debianutils should be tagged Essential as well. 
(If --force-depends is considered as strong a hassle as
--force-remove-essential then this discussion is meaningless, sorry).

OTOH, perhaps gzip does not depends on debianutils at all, and that
dependency is: 
  1) a bug 
  2) a clever hack that should be documented...

Am I missing something?
--
Enrique Zanardi						   ezanardi@ull.es
Dpto. Fisica Fundamental y Experimental			Univ. de La Laguna