ReView dependencies and crackdown on ever-expanding dependencies

Somehow, the entire open source developer community needs to get a handle on it. It's a big problem for some of us, and I suspect other people, organizations, etc., when trying to tailor a machine for a particular use case.

The Debian policy has a a very good statement on how to categorize dependencies (http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-relationships.html). Unfortunately, the policy seems not to be enforced nearly enough.

In particular, the entire community should make greater use of suggestions for enhancements and recommendations regarding dependencies. That includes virtual packages that "provide" packages, and meta-packages that are similarly to be taken into account when it comes to dependency relationships.

I'm not sure how to create a process that would herd the cats, but it's what's needed. Perhaps each distribution should have a "dependency czar" to review dependencies and crackdown on ever-expanding dependencies.