[csw-maintainers] Packages that require either package A or package B'

[Philip Brown]

On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 02:27:54PM -0400, Ben Walton wrote:
> > Not only does it solve the "problem" in that area, but it would solve it
> > BETTER than how debian 'solves' it.
> 
> ...except for the hole that is: none of those packages depend on the
> actual db package, so removing it wouldn't generate any warnings
> (unless some other package marked it explicitly).  Would the
> CSWdbwrapper depend on both?  With debian, removing the package
> providing the 'generic' rdbms would alert you to the dependency
> breakage.
> 

I doubt that debian does it any better.
For example, lets say that you were installing... [foo], which depended on
 "mysql|postgres", and you had BOTH installed.

You chose to install it using mysql.
Then later, you choose to remove mysql, but postgres is still there.

does apt-get/aptitude somehow register that you chose mysql specifically
for package [foo], 
and complains about the removal?
I am scheptical about this.