diff --git a/packages/mongo-livedata/package.js b/packages/mongo-livedata/package.js
index 070c19ad19..7d53239653 100644
--- a/packages/mongo-livedata/package.js
+++ b/packages/mongo-livedata/package.js
@@ -26,6 +26,10 @@ Package.on_use(function (api) {
   // Allow us to detect 'autopublish', and publish collections if it's loaded.
   api.use('autopublish', 'server', {weak: true});
 
+  // RemoteCollectionDriver gets its deployConfig from something that is (for
+  // questionable reasons) initialized by the webapp package.
+  api.use('webapp', 'server', {weak: true});
+
   api.export('MongoLivedataTest', 'server', {testOnly: true});
 
   api.add_files('mongo_driver.js', 'server');
diff --git a/packages/mongo-livedata/remote_collection_driver.js b/packages/mongo-livedata/remote_collection_driver.js
index a6ede8bdbe..5996344faf 100644
--- a/packages/mongo-livedata/remote_collection_driver.js
+++ b/packages/mongo-livedata/remote_collection_driver.js
@@ -23,9 +23,10 @@ _.extend(RemoteCollectionDriver.prototype, {
 // you're only trying to receive data from a remote DDP server.)
 getRemoteCollectionDriver = _.once(function () {
   // XXX kind of hacky
-  var mongoUrl = (typeof __meteor_bootstrap__ !== 'undefined' &&
-                  Meteor._get(__meteor_bootstrap__.deployConfig,
-                              'packages', 'mongo-livedata', 'url'));
+  var mongoUrl = (
+    typeof __meteor_bootstrap__ !== 'undefined' &&
+      Meteor._get(__meteor_bootstrap__,
+                  'deployConfig', 'packages', 'mongo-livedata', 'url'));
   // XXX bad error since it could also be set directly in METEOR_DEPLOY_CONFIG
   if (! mongoUrl)
     throw new Error("MONGO_URL must be set in environment");
diff --git a/packages/webapp/webapp_server.js b/packages/webapp/webapp_server.js
index 3086d2e452..08f2aa5c1a 100644
--- a/packages/webapp/webapp_server.js
+++ b/packages/webapp/webapp_server.js
@@ -183,7 +183,9 @@ var runWebAppServer = function () {
     throw new Error("Unsupported format for client assets: " +
                     JSON.stringify(clientJson.format));
 
-  // XXX change all this config to something more reasonable
+  // XXX change all this config to something more reasonable.
+  //     and move it out of webapp into a different package so you don't
+  //     have weird things like mongo-livedata weak-dep'ing on webapp
   var deployConfig =
         process.env.METEOR_DEPLOY_CONFIG
         ? JSON.parse(process.env.METEOR_DEPLOY_CONFIG) : {};