Should foreign Priority: Required + Multi-Arch: same packages be installed by default with any foreign package?

[Steve Langasek]

On Mon, Mar 05, 2012 at 09:38:55PM -0800, Scott Ritchie wrote:
> > libncurses5 is not essential, so it seems like a simple case of missing 
> > depends.  Making the assumption that transitive dependency resolution will 
> > bring in packages your package needs via another package depends is a bug.

> Perhaps I'm misinterpreting the Debian Policy for Priority: Required
> packages.

Yes, you are.

> Why does that category even exist if we also have the Essential tag?

It is what it says on the tin - you should not remove required packages from
your system.  That doesn't mean that you're allowed to not depend on the
libraries that your package needs in order to use, because the set of
"required" libraries *changes* over time.

The only packages you don't have to depend on if you need them are the
Essential: yes packages - and shared libraries are not allowed to be
Essential: yes.

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek at ubuntu.com                                     vorlon at debian.org
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