diff --git a/libzypp-plugin-appdata.changes b/libzypp-plugin-appdata.changes
index 61c4fa1..0a88a57 100644
--- a/libzypp-plugin-appdata.changes
+++ b/libzypp-plugin-appdata.changes
@@ -1,3 +1,13 @@
+-------------------------------------------------------------------
+Thu Mar 28 12:54:44 UTC 2019 - Dominique Leuenberger <dimstar@opensuse.org>
+
+- Only Recommend instead of require AppStream: Allow distros like
+  SLE not to ship AppStream as part of the main channel, but only
+  in PK for example. SLE only ships GNOME Software, which does not
+  rely on the xapian database, so we don't need this cache being
+  refreshed. On SLE+PH or openSUSE, we also have KDE Discover,
+  where xapian becomes a topic (boo#1125898).
+
 -------------------------------------------------------------------
 Mon Apr 30 15:16:07 UTC 2018 - jengelh@inai.de
 
diff --git a/libzypp-plugin-appdata.spec b/libzypp-plugin-appdata.spec
index 05da1db..34918d9 100644
--- a/libzypp-plugin-appdata.spec
+++ b/libzypp-plugin-appdata.spec
@@ -25,8 +25,8 @@ Group:          System/Libraries
 URL:            https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/Apps/Software
 Source0:        openSUSE-appstream-%{version}.tar.xz
 Source99:       libzypp-plugin-appdata-rpmlintrc
-# appstreamcli is provided by the AppStream package
-Requires:       AppStream
+# appstreamcli is provided by the AppStream package. Let's pull it in when available, but ignore its absence
+Recommends:     AppStream
 # appstream-glib >= 0.3.6 is the first to correctly to appstream-util uninstall in /var/cache
 Requires:       appstream-glib >= 0.3.6
 # appdata hook was introduced in libzypp 14.29.4