On Sun, May 13, 2001 at 01:54:08PM +0200, Josip Rodin wrote:
>
> That is, ae, which is required. In another place, Policy says:
>
> `required' packages are necessary for the proper functioning of
> the system. You must not remove these packages or your system
> may become totally broken and you may not even be able to use
> `dpkg' to put things back.
However, the policy also says:
Every package must specify the dependency information about other
packages that are required for the first to work correctly.
For example, a dependency entry must be provided for any shared
libraries required by a dynamically-linked executable binary in a
package.
Packages are not required to declare any dependencies they have on
other packages which are marked `Essential' (see below), and should
not do so unless they depend on a particular version of that package.
I agree that in this particular case, the distinction is only of academic
interest. Nevertheless, it may come back to bite us later should we wish
to rely on the fact that only essential packages have implicit dependencies
on them.
Intuitively, non-essential required packages should only exist if they're
depended on by essential ones. That's why I have a problem with ae being
a non-essential required package when nothing essential depends on it.
> If they knew how to screw up their system by removing all of the editors,
> they'll know how to fix it by adding back some editors. This isn't
> fool-proof, but so what?
Agreed.
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