Make packaging a required dependency

docs/changelog.rst

@@ -7,13 +7,9 @@ below!
 Unreleased
 ----------
 
-New features:
-
 Bug fixes:
 
-For packagers:
-
-Other changes:
+- Make ``packaging`` a required dependency. :bug:`6332`
 
 2.6.0 (February 01, 2026)
 -------------------------

poetry.lock

@@ -4583,4 +4583,4 @@ web = ["flask", "flask-cors"]
 [metadata]
 lock-version = "2.0"
 python-versions = ">=3.10,<4"
-content-hash = "f8ce55ae74c5e3c5d1d330582f83dae30ef963a0b8dd8c8b79f16c3bcfdb525a"
+content-hash = "eefe427d3b3b9b871ca6bcd8405e3578a16d660afd7925c14793514f03c96ac6"

pyproject.toml

@@ -52,6 +52,7 @@ numpy = [
     { python = "<3.13", version = ">=2.0.2" },
     { python = ">=3.13", version = ">=2.3.4" },
 ]
+packaging = ">=24.0"
 platformdirs = ">=3.5.0"
 pyyaml = "*"
 requests = ">=2.32.5"
@@ -132,7 +133,6 @@ types-urllib3 = "*"
 
 [tool.poetry.group.release.dependencies]
 click = ">=8.1.7"
-packaging = ">=24.0"
 tomli = ">=2.0.1"
 
 [tool.poetry.extras]