tlmgr package dependencies

[Karl Berry]

Hi Max,

    could be included in the source distribution with one package per line? 

I invented the file DEPENDS.txt for exactly this, a few years ago.
https://tug.org/texlive/pkgcontrib.html#deps

Some packages use it. It is not especially easy to deal with (either
creating or reading, I imagine), but I guess it helps in some cases, so
that is fine.

    know better what they depend on and under which circumstances
    than TeX-Live maintainers, right?

1) the TL maintainers (e.g., me) don't even attempt to guess at
dependencies. That would be, as you imply, crazy :).

2) There is no way to define conditional dependencies (or conditions).
No information is available to tlmgr about that.

Best,
Karl