[Pkg-nagios-devel] Bug#1118116: Bug#1118116: monitoring-plugins-contrib: suggests python3-boto which is not in unstable

[Sebastiaan Couwenberg]

On 10/15/25 7:58 AM, Carles Pina i Estany wrote:
> On 15 Oct 2025 at 07:46:23, Sebastiaan Couwenberg wrote:
>> On 10/15/25 7:28 AM, Carles Pina i Estany wrote:
>>> I see that the package monitoring-plugins-contrib (version 48.20250420)
>>> suggests python3-boto which is not in unstable.
>>
>> Suggests like Recommends are not hard dependencies, they need not be installable.
> 
> I think that Recommends should be available in Debian repositories
> unless is an alternative to one existing there:
> 
> https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-archive.html#the-main-archive-area
> 
> "In addition, the packages in main:
> 
> must not require or recommend a package outside of main for compilation or execution (thus, the package must not declare a Pre-Depends, Depends, Recommends, Build-Depends, Build-Depends-Indep, or Build-Depends-Arch relationship on a non-main package unless that package is only listed as a non-default alternative for a package in main
> "
> 
> For Suggests: I found that sometimes packages get dropped from Debian
> (or renamed) and Suggests are not updated accordingly. E.g. packages
> suggesting mozilla, iceweasel, icedove instead of firefox-esr or
> www-browser. I thought that boto -> boto3 was one of this. Luckily, it's
> not! :-)

Dependencies for the monitoring plugin packages follow their practical effect, not their Debian policy definition.

 From README.Debian.plugins.in:

"
  Some plugins require additional libraries. To prevent you from having to
  install dozens of further packages that you don't actually need, there is
  no strict dependency on those libraries. Rather, they are listed as
  recommendations or suggestions.
"

Kind Regards,

Bas

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