[$] Debian's AWKward essential set

The Debian project has the concept of essential packages, which provide the bare minimum functionality considered absolutely necessary (or "essential") for a system to function. Packages tagged as essential, and the packages that are required by the set of essential packages, are always installed as part of a Debian system. However, Debian's packaging rules do not require developers to explicitly declare dependencies on that set of packages (the essential set) but they can simply rely on the fact that those will always be present. That means that changing the essential set, as the project may wish to do occasionally, is more complicated than it should be. This came to light recently when a Debian developer asked what might be required to remove mawk to slim down the project's container images.