Is this a bug?

[Stefan Schmitt <sschmitt4711@nurfuerspam.de>]

Hi,

I have put udev on hold on my system, so apt-get upgrade does not
upgrade it and its dependencies:

===
sschmitt@alfons:~$ sudo apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
  dbus-1-utils gnome-volume-manager hal hal-device-manager udev
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 5 not upgraded.
===


When I request a dist-upgrade, some python dependencies of the new
hal-device-manager are installed, although the new hal-device-manager is
held back:

===
sschmitt@alfons:~$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  python2.4 python2.4-dbus python2.4-glade2 python2.4-gnome2
  python2.4-gtk2 python2.4-libxml2 python2.4-minimal python2.4-numeric
  python2.4-pyorbit
The following packages have been kept back:
  dbus-1-utils gnome-volume-manager hal hal-device-manager udev
0 upgraded, 9 newly installed, 0 to remove and 5 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/4748kB of archives.
After unpacking 15.7MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
===

So the python packages are installed although no other installed package
depends on them. As a result of that, debfoster removes them afterwards
and they are installed again at the next dist-upgrade. That's quite an
annoying and senseless loop.

Is this the supposed behavior of apt-get or just a bug?


Stefan