[pritambaral]

The original meaning still works. In the software world, where abstractions abound, each dependee of yours can be said to add one 'state of being dependent' to your set of requirements. That's what it meant originally in this young field; when an author chooses to use a library instead of writing their own code, they're adding a requirement for the user ("Hey, you gotta have this thing already installed"). The software is in a state of being dependent on each of its dependees, individually. Each such state could be removed by replacing the library, and thus there'd exist one less 'dependency'.

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Yes, this is mental gymnastics, another fine staple of this glorious field.