I sometimes install software locally that certain packages depend on. To avoid breaking dselect, I usually make a .deb of this software, update my package list, and install it. Sometimes, for various reasons, this isn't convenient; the way I partition the software may differ from the package maintainer's divisions. This is particularly a nuisance when dealing with dependencies for a specific version of a package.
I vaguely remember reading somewhere that dpkg might be changed to allow specifying versions in the provides field. I would find this extremely convenient. Another possibility might be to add a placeholder record. In other words, through dpkg, dselect, or apt, the admin could modify a special record which tells the system not to worry about dependencies for a list of packages or virtual packages. The admin could also specify which versions of each package should be considered satisfied or installed, including the option to ignore version numbers altogether. This would solve the same problem in a perhaps more flexible fashion.
