sb> Before I forget ... sb> The current REQUIRES field is only a bytecompile-time dependency not a sb> run-time dependency and should *never* be enforced at run-time, sb> including package fetching. sb> Since not all run-time dependencies should be enforced either sb> (eg. Gnus run-time dependency on rmail), the solution isn't a sb> straightforward download everything. sb> Suggestions? If I understand things well, this confusion probably stems from the following line in package-info.in that can be found in most packages, I believe: requires (REQUIRES) Editing this line by hand for packages that need it should be enough to introduce the distinction between bytecompile-time and runtime/package-installation-time dependencies. This patch to package-info.el is needed in that case: 1998-10-16 Oscar Figueiredo <Oscar.Figueiredo(a)di.epfl.ch&gt; * package-info.el (pi-update-key): Ignore missing keys Index: package-info.el =================================================================== RCS file: /usr/CVSroot/XEmacs/xemacs-20/lisp/package-info.el,v retrieving revision 1.4 diff -u -u -r1.4 package-info.el --- package-info.el 1998/01/25 09:54:45 1.4 +++ package-info.el 1998/10/16 15:34:58 ＠＠ -59,7 +59,7 ＠＠ (save-excursion (goto-char (point-min)) (let ((case-fold-search nil)) - (when (search-forward key) + (when (search-forward key nil t) (replace-match value t))))) (defun pi-author-version (author-version) Oscar