diff --git a/src/sage/doctest/control.py b/src/sage/doctest/control.py
index 2d93841e50..937e20cd2e 100644
--- a/src/sage/doctest/control.py
+++ b/src/sage/doctest/control.py
@@ -357,20 +357,6 @@ class DocTestController(SageObject):
                 # Special case to run all optional tests
                 options.optional = True
             else:
-                # We replace the 'optional' tag by all optional
-                # packages for which the installed version matches the
-                # latest available version (this implies in particular
-                # that the package is actually installed).
-                if 'optional' in options.optional:
-                    options.optional.discard('optional')
-                    from sage.misc.package import list_packages
-                    for pkg in list_packages('optional', local=True).values():
-                        if pkg['installed'] and pkg['installed_version'] == pkg['remote_version']:
-                            options.optional.add(pkg['name'])
-
-                    from sage.features import package_systems
-                    options.optional.update(system.name for system in package_systems())
-
                 # Check that all tags are valid
                 for o in options.optional:
                     if not optionaltag_regex.search(o):