Bug#966498: libgd-perl: Dropped libgd-gd2-perl breaks a Recommends in lcov and prevents a clean upgrade

[Vincent Lefevre]

On 2020-07-29 14:05:43 +0200, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> Package: libgd-perl
> Version: 2.72-1
> Severity: important
> 
> libgd-perl (2.72-1) unstable; urgency=medium
> [...]
>   * Drop ancient Breakes/Replaces/Provides on libgd-gd2-{,noxpm-}perl.
> [...]
>  -- gregor herrmann <gregoa at debian.org>  Wed, 22 Jul 2020 19:58:57 +0200
> 
> libgd-gd2-perl is not ancient. It is still used by lcov at least:
> 
> Package: lcov
> Status: install ok installed
> Priority: optional
> Section: devel
> Installed-Size: 456
> Maintainer: Alastair McKinstry <mckinstry at debian.org>
> Architecture: all
> Version: 1.14-2
> Depends: perl:any, gcc, libjson-perl, libperlio-gzip-perl
> Recommends: libgd-gd2-perl
> 
> signing-party 2.11-1 also has:
> Recommends: default-mta | mail-transport-agent, dialog | whiptail, libgd-gd2-noxpm-perl | libgd-gd2-perl, libpaper-utils
> 
> This prevents a clean upgrade with aptitude, which checks Recommends.

Worse than that, if libgd-gd2-perl features were silently dropped,
this may break lcov. And if they are still present in libgd-perl,
installing lcov on a machine will not install libgd-perl automatically
(in case it is not already installed), so that lcov will not behave as
normally expected.

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent at vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
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Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / AriC project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)