partial upgrade confusion

[Remy Indebetouw <remy@astro.wisc.edu>]

I have potato but libc6 (and a couple of other things, I think
binutils) from woody.  I need lib6c-dev, but want as little
else as possible.  I tried pointing my sources.list at woody, running
apt-get upgrade, and apt-get install libc6-dev.  It wants to do a lot of
things that I didn't think would be related (see below), like remove
gnome.  Can i do this in a simpler manner, without so many other changes,
or does all this depend on each other?
Why do all these other packages depend on libc6-dev?  (as opposed to
libc6)
Or should I try to downgrade my libc6, hoping that I don't have much else
from woody that will break?

Thanks in advance for any help.

>apt-get install libc6-dev
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  debconf debconf-utils debhelper dialog dpkg-dev esound esound-common
freeciv
  gnome-games-locale html2text imlib-base libart2 libbonobo2 libbz2-1.0
libc6
  libcapplet1 libdb3 libdps1 libefs1 libesd0 libfreetype6 libgnorbagtk0
  libgpmg1 libgtk1.2-common libncurses5 libperl5.6 libpopt0 libreadline4
  libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2 libzvt2 locales mc mc-common perl perl-5.005
  perl-5.005-base perl-5.005-suid perl-base perl-modules perl-suid
whiptail
  xfree86-common
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  alien balsa eeyes freeciv-gtk gedit gftp gimp gimp-nonfree gmc
gnome-admin
  gnome-bin gnome-card-games gnome-control-center gnome-core gnome-games
  gnome-gataxx gnome-glines gnome-gnibbles gnome-gnobots2 gnome-gnometris
  gnome-gnomine gnome-gnotravex gnome-gtali gnome-gturing gnome-gv
gnome-help
  gnome-iagno gnome-mahjongg gnome-media gnome-network gnome-panel
  gnome-panel-data gnome-pim gnome-print gnome-same-gnome gnome-session
  gnome-stones gnome-terminal gnome-utils gnome-xbill gnomehack gnomeicu
  gnosamba gnotepad+ gnotes gnumeric gps gqview gtkglarea4 gtop guitar
gxanim
  libcapplet0 libglade-gnome0 libglade0 libgnome32 libgnomesupport0
  libgnomeui32 libgnorba27 libgtk1.2 libgtkxmhtml1 libobgnome0 libobgtk1
  python-gtk rpm ssh-askpass-gnome task-gnome-apps task-gnome-desktop
  task-gnome-games task-gnome-net task-science xchat-gnome xcontrib xsm
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  debconf-utils html2text libbonobo2 libbz2-1.0 libc6-dev libcapplet1
libdb3
  libdps1 libefs1 libfreetype6 libgtk1.2-common libperl5.6
  libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2 perl perl-modules perl-suid
The following held packages will be changed:
  guitar task-gnome-apps
27 packages upgraded, 16 newly installed, 74 to remove and 336 not
upgraded.
Need to get 21.0MB of archives. After unpacking 26.4MB will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]