Is yum dependency resolution upside down?

[Michael Schwendt]

On Mon, 13 Jun 2011 14:21:32 -0700, JZ wrote:

> On 06/13/2011 02:02 PM, Michael Schwendt wrote:
> > Now you only repeat [albeit with many words] what has been explained
> > before. Do I need to repeat that package "ppp" is a dependency of
> > NetworkManager and that by removing "ppp" you need to remove
> > NetworkManager, too?
> 
> No, I'm not repeating what's been said before; I'm suggesting an 
> *explanation* for this behaviour, which is more than anybody else has 
> even tried.

Then you should have asked. The only question mark one of your messages
contains is in this fragment:

| Checking, I find that there's a directory on this box, /etc/ppp so it must
| have been brought in with everything else.  However, I don't see why
| removing it would take out everything else in Networking.  I won't say
| that there's no good reason for it, but I will say that it's not clear to
| me why that would happen.  Does anybody on the list know?

Which only caused confusion, because the dependency between ppp and
NetworkManager has been pointed out before and because you are vague
about what you mean with "Networking". NetworkManager is just one way
to control networking, and I've thought it was obvious that it wants ppp
to handle such connections. Without the dependency, one could remove
ppp and kill NM's ability to start such a classic dial-up connection
on a machine that possibly needs it for network access. Then the only
way out would be for the user to reinstall ppp from local storage media
(perhaps with package tools giving assistance).