Bug#544481: diff should not be an essential package

[Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>]

On Tue, 1 Sep 2009, Raphael Hertzog wrote:

> reassing 544481 apt 0.7.23.1
> severity 544481 normal
> retitle 544481 apt mixes essential flag from all sources

Thanks, Raphael. This is clearly a problem in apt.

> I also fail to see why this bug would be critical, the set of essential
> packages doesn't change often and having to keep around the transitional
> package is not a big deal.

Exactly.

Note to Vincent: Please do not overinflate bug severities.

Clearly, apt-get currently considers a package essential as far as
there is *some* essential package with that name available in any of
the sources.list lines.

As a result, you can't currently remove the dummy diff package, but
what is the real harm of not being able to remove a dummy package?
That's a bug like any other, not a critical one.

Another way of looking at that would be this one:

The description of diff now says that "you can remove it after
upgrading to squeeze". The dummy diff package is not in testing yet,
so this is naturally to be read by lenny users who upgrade to squeeze
once the new diff and diffutils packages reach testing.

However, I would not consider that you have "upgraded to squeeze" if you
still keep lenny lines in your sources.list.

The diff package is dummy for the benefit of people who do not want
any leftover of lenny in the system when they upgrade to squeeze.

So, if you don't want any leftover of lenny, consider removing lenny
from your sources.list.