Bug#544990: mplayer: Mplayer depends on dummy package libsdl1.2debian

[A Mennucc]

hi,

what is the purpose of 'libsdl1.2debian' ? answer:
any other packages (such as mplayer) that uses SDL
declares a dependency on 'libsdl1.2debian',
instead of listing  a complete list of subdependencies;
the good point is that, if SDL changes its list of audio plugins,
there is no reason to recompile lots of other packages
just to add that specific plugin to the list of dependencies.

Usually the above behaviour is obtained by
using a virtual package, but in the case
of SDL they used a dummy package.

Look at this:
# apt-cache rdepends libsdl1.2debian | sort -u | wc -l
    333
#apt-cache rdepends libsdl1.2debian-oss
libsdl1.2debian-oss
Reverse Depends:
  libsdl1.2debian-pulseaudio
  libsdl1.2debian-nas
  libsdl1.2debian-esd
  libsdl1.2debian-arts
  libsdl1.2debian-alsa
  libsdl1.2debian-all
 |libsdl1.2debian

As you see all packages that use SDL depend on  'libsdl1.2debian' 
whereas no one depends on the audio plugins.
I did the above in a Debian/Lenny install;
and I did not hear of any change for Squeeze.

I see no reason why mplayer should be the only package
in 332 packages to link to plugins, as you ask.

a.