[Bug 89782] removing parts of the package makes apt-get autoremove run wild

[AllesMeins]

Public bug reported:

Binary package hint: kubuntu-desktop

I'm a gnome user and recently installed kde for testing purpose using the "kubuntu-desktop" package. Today I decided to do a little "house cleaning" and removed unneeded packages/programs. During that i also deleted some packages included in standard kubuntu and had to delete the "kubuntu-desktop" package with them (the description said it was save to remove it).
To finish my cleaning i ran "apt-get autoremove" and got a little surprising result:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  python-elementtree kpdf python2.4-dev ksystemlog krdc ksplash-engine-moodin
  krfb kdeprint ksvg libqt4-qt3support kubuntu-default-settings gtk-qt-engine
  kdepim-kio-plugins kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kde-style-polyester
  adept-common kio-locate libk3b2 libnl1-pre6 ksnapshot liblockdev1 libkipi0
  adept-installer konqueror-nsplugins libkexif1 [...]
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 140 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 278MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? 

(for a complete output see the attached file)

It seems like removing the "kubuntu-desktop" package causes apt-get to mark large parts of kde as no longer necessary, making it impossible to remove single parts of the kubuntu desktop environment and use autoremove at any later time.
I guess this applies only when the "kubuntu-desktop" package was installed from the repositories and works the other way round with the "ubuntu-desktop" package as well.
If this is not fixable there should be a warning in the package description.

** Affects: kubuntu-meta (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: Unconfirmed

-- 
After removing the package "apt-get autoremove" recommends the removal of 140 packages
https://launchpad.net/bugs/89782