Re: Bug#758234: transitive dependencies

[Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>]

On Sat, Nov 15, 2014 at 04:31:37PM +0000, Simon McVittie wrote:
> For the reasons Matthias and I have outlined, I think the current rules
> are both unnecessary and harmful. Automating an unnecessary and harmful
> thing does not make it any more necessary, or less harmful.

My proposal would be to add a paragraph in policy which explictly
states that all libraries are optional by default.

However, I don't see what do we gain by making libc6 optional. I see
that as a too much radical change.

Would be very difficult to automate that an essential[*] package
depending on another package (library or not) makes the other package
automatically required? Would that be harmful? (I fail to see how it
could be harmful).

[*] Only essential packages, not virtually essential packages like awk
or pseudo-essential packages like the alternate dependencies of "init".

Thanks.