mediatomb should not depend on www-browser

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

From "apt-cache show mediatomb"

 This package contains the desktop file needed to access the web ui using a
 system's default web browser. This package also acts as a virtual package to
 install all other mediatomb packages.

You don't need this package on your server. You only need mediatomb-daemon. It does not depend on firefox.

I have marked this bug as Invalid. I hope I am allowed to do that...

See this is the problem with Ubuntu, and one of the reasons why I and many others run Arch and other distros. Regardless of the semantics involved in the description we really need to stop treating people like idiots and shoving software down their throat.

I have Google Chrome installed, which provides www-browser, but since it's not part of Canonical the Ubuntu Software Center doesn't recognize that fact. Ergo when I someone tries to remove Firefox using that method it will remove Mediatomb as well. On top of which it removes ALL of Mediatomb, not just the virtual package.

The bottom line is that a web browser is a common enough thing that people don't need to be forced to install one. In essence the only thing a virtual package should require are packages that are all components of the same application, not some arbitrary external application that may or may not have designated itself as a web browser.

Mediatomb does NOT "depend" on Firefox, or www-browser for that matter, following that logic you might as well also require linux-generic, x-window-system, gnome-desktop | kde-plasma-desktop | xfdesktop4 | desktop-base, etc...

In short, this dependency should not be there, simply because this package includes a desktop shortcut to a web page, a recommendation should be MORE than sufficient. In what universe will a situation arise where someone knows what a web page is and want's to load it but doesn't have a browser installed or know where to get one?

See http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-relationships.html, which clearly states that a dependancy should only be declared when a package cannot be installed and configured without it.