I was wondering about the policy of some packagers to use depends rather
than recommends in a case where an upstream source has added support
for, but not a reliance on, some service. I can understand that a
build-dep on the dev package would be seem desirable but in the case of
pulseaudio and avahi for instance it makes them almost impossible to
remove without gutting your system.

I understand that these may not be at the top of devuans agenda but I'm
interested in the general policy to be taken it someone were to
undertake to repackage more reasonably.