We only fixed the dependency on docker from cockpit-shell in 0.113, but the cockpit metapackage still pulls in cockpit-docker.

The question is, do we want cockpit to pull in docker where available? How will someone who has docker know to install cockpit-docker?

After some discussion Stef Walter, Fabian Deutsch and I came to the conclusion that it wouldn't be good for now to remove cockpit-docker from the cockpit metapackage. Cockpit is about discoverability, and right now a user would have difficulty finding out about cockpit-docker.

For that reason it is recommended that consumers who aren't happy with the choice of packages required by the metapackage be picky about what they pull in, at least until all affected distributions support Recommends/Suggests nomenclature in their packaging.

Discounting cockpit-docker, a consumer would need to use the following packages to get the equivalent experience:

cockpit-bridge
cockpit-shell
cockpit-ws
cockpit-storaged
cockpit-networkmanager (only non-RHEL)

On RHEL, a few upstream packages are part of the cockpit-shell package:
cockpit-subscriptions, cockpit-sosreport and cockpit-networkmanager

cockpit-ws can of course also be replaced with the cockpit-ws-docker container.

Spec file: https://github.com/cockpit-project/cockpit/blob/ce83dc7103c79a569663e8903e80ca6c1d97ab6c/tools/cockpit.spec#L90