Bug#490169: apt: undesired autoremove behavior

[joshk@triplehelix.org (Joshua Kwan)]

Package: apt
Version: 0.7.14+b1

I recently installed the latest msttcorefonts, which is now a dummy
package for the new name ttf-msttcorefonts-installer. I had previously
installed msttcorefonts manually.

Since msttcorefonts is now a dummy package, I removed it from my system.
But because ttf-msttcorefonts-installer was installed as a dependency of
msttcorefonts, apt now suggests it for autoremoval. I think this
behavior is highly misleading.

A potential solution would involve a package control field indicating
the status of msttcorefonts as a dummy package for
ttf-msttcorefonts-installer. That way, the "manually installed" state,
true or false, could propagate to the new package.

Obviously, this will happen consistently in the very common case of
all dummy packages being used in Debian.

Thoughts?

-- 
Joshua Kwan