diff --git a/requirements-py3.txt b/requirements-py3.txt
index fe306dd49..e895c9968 100644
--- a/requirements-py3.txt
+++ b/requirements-py3.txt
@@ -1,9 +1,13 @@
+# The order of packages is significant, because pip processes them in the order
+# of appearance. Changing the order has an impact on the overall integration
+# process, which may cause wedges in the gate later.
+
+pbr>=0.6,!=0.7,<1.0
 Babel>=1.3
 Flask>=0.10,<1.0
 iso8601>=0.1.9
 oslo.config>=1.2.1
 paramiko>=1.13.0
-pbr>=0.6,!=0.7,<1.0
 psutil>=1.1.1,<2.0.0
 python3-memcached>=1.48
 PyYAML>=3.1.0
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 11cf8a3eb..fdf14e05e 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -1,9 +1,13 @@
+# The order of packages is significant, because pip processes them in the order
+# of appearance. Changing the order has an impact on the overall integration
+# process, which may cause wedges in the gate later.
+
+pbr>=0.6,!=0.7,<1.0
 Babel>=1.3
 Flask>=0.10,<1.0
 iso8601>=0.1.9
 oslo.config>=1.2.1
 paramiko>=1.13.0
-pbr>=0.6,!=0.7,<1.0
 psutil>=1.1.1,<2.0.0
 python-memcached>=1.48
 PyYAML>=3.1.0
diff --git a/test-requirements.txt b/test-requirements.txt
index 2a671e577..74efde6bc 100644
--- a/test-requirements.txt
+++ b/test-requirements.txt
@@ -1,8 +1,13 @@
+# The order of packages is significant, because pip processes them in the order
+# of appearance. Changing the order has an impact on the overall integration
+# process, which may cause wedges in the gate later.
+
+# Hacking already pins down pep8, pyflakes and flake8
+hacking>=0.8.0,<0.9
 coverage>=3.6
 discover
 docutils==0.9.1
 fixtures>=0.3.14
-hacking>=0.8.0,<0.9
 jsonschema>=2.0.0,<3.0.0
 mock>=1.0
 python-subunit
diff --git a/tools/requirements_style_check.sh b/tools/requirements_style_check.sh
deleted file mode 100755
index ccbff3bdd..000000000
--- a/tools/requirements_style_check.sh
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,32 +0,0 @@
-#!/bin/bash
-#
-# Enforce the requirement that dependencies are listed in the input
-# files in alphabetical order.
-
-# FIXME(dhellmann): This doesn't deal with URL requirements very
-# well. We should probably sort those on the egg-name, rather than the
-# full line.
-
-function check_file() {
-    typeset f=$1
-
-    # We don't care about comment lines.
-    grep -v '^#' $f > ${f}.unsorted
-    sort -i -f ${f}.unsorted > ${f}.sorted
-    diff -c ${f}.unsorted ${f}.sorted
-    rc=$?
-    rm -f ${f}.sorted ${f}.unsorted
-    return $rc
-}
-
-exit_code=0
-for filename in $@
-do
-    check_file $filename
-    if [ $? -ne 0 ]
-    then
-        echo "Please list requirements in $filename in alphabetical order" 1>&2
-        exit_code=1
-    fi
-done
-exit $exit_code
diff --git a/tox.ini b/tox.ini
index 5730b9ad1..c1225afed 100644
--- a/tox.ini
+++ b/tox.ini
@@ -25,7 +25,6 @@ deps = -r{toxinidir}/requirements-py3.txt
 
 [testenv:pep8]
 commands = flake8
-           {toxinidir}/tools/requirements_style_check.sh requirements.txt requirements-py3.txt test-requirements.txt
 distribute = false
 
 [testenv:venv]