python-software-properties should not depend on unattended-upgrades

[Barney]

After upgrading to 11.10, attempting to remove the unattended-upgrades package now forces me to remove python-software-properties, which in turn wants to remove nearly 100 other packages which I still need.

I can see no reason for a normal package to depend on unattended-upgrades: if anyone can supply one then I'll happily cancel this request.

Yes, I know I can disable the unattended-upgrades without actually removing the package, but that is not the point: packages should not introduce unnecessary dependencies. In fact, this appears to be the only package in the entire system which has a dependency on unattended-upgrades:

# apt-rdepends -r unattended-upgrades
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
unattended-upgrades
  Reverse Depends: python-software-properties (0.81.10)

This is mentioned in the upstream bug report at http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=447701, which appears to be over 4 years old with no sign of action.

Further information:

$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 11.10
Release: 11.10

$ apt-cache policy python-software-properties
python-software-properties:
  Installed: 0.81.13.1
  Candidate: 0.81.13.1
  Version table:
 *** 0.81.13.1 0
        500 http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     0.81.10 0
        500 http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric/main amd64 Packages

What I expect to happen:

* removing unattended-upgrades should not remove any other packages

What actually happened:

* removing unattended-upgrades forces the removeal ov nearly 100 other packages, which I still need.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: python-software-properties 0.81.13.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-13.22-generic 3.0.6
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-13-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu4
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun Nov 27 12:48:49 2011
InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release amd64 (20111012)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_AU:en
 LANG=en_AU.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: software-properties
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Robert Roth (evfool)]

 Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This particular bug has already been reported and is a duplicate of bug #831487, so it is being marked as such. Please look at the other bug report to see if there is any missing information that you can provide, or to see if there is a workaround for the bug. Additionally, any further discussion regarding the bug should occur in the other report. Feel free to continue to report any other bugs you may find.