Comment 4 for bug 1980663

src:inetutils (in universe) contains the 'inetutils-telnet' binary, which "Provides:" telnet.

A "telnet" binary package was provided by src:netkit-telnet (in main) in the past, but this was renamed to "netkit-telnet" as of https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/netkit-telnet/0.17-48 which makes germinate think there would be a component-mismatch: https://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-archive/germinate-output/ubuntu.kinetic/all

There's also a transition related to this: https://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-archive/transitions/html/auto-netkit-telnet.html

IIUC an AA needs to demote the "telnet" binary and promote "netkit-telnet" (and "netkit-telnetd") instead. This should restore status quo with src:netkit-telnet being in main and src:inetutils being in universe, like before the rename of binary packages.

(Keeping this bug open as "Triaged" – for now, to show up as an update-excuse bug)