KatolaZ <katolaz@???> wrote:

> Replace 'links2' with 'openssh-server' and 'libfbdirect' with
> 'libsystemd0', and you should see what I mean. Most of the De??an
> installations actually have tons of libraries that are never used, or
> are just used to probe for a certain functionality that is not
> available. This happens all the time, under the hood.

Well yyeeessss, and no.
AIUI it is **possible** to write your program with functionality along the lines of :
- test if libx is available
- if so
-- load libx
-- call function y to see if facility z is available


But that's a fair bit more work than just :
(assume libx is present, link to libx when building binary)
- call function y and let the system take care of loading libx

Certainly when I raised a bug report against clamav the response was a "quite emphatic" "that's how it works, if libsystemd0 isn't present then your system is broken because that's now Debian policy". It's clear that libsystemd linkage is here to stay in Debian packaging, and it's equally clear that rebuilding **LOTS** of packages *just* to remove that one call to find out that systemd isn't present would not be a good use of the limited developer time & skills available.