Re: Build dependencies: some thoughts

[Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho <gaia@iki.fi>]

On Wed, Oct 27, 1999 at 03:17:52PM +0100, Julian Gilbey wrote:
> It's not easy.  In fact it's *really* not easy.

It is easy.  I've specified build-time dependencies on some of my packages
for months now.  You just happened to try a nasty case as your first.

> Standard packages: dpkg-dev, lynx, make
> 
>   Now these should need listing, as they are not marked essential.

dpkg-dev and make are obviously build-essential.

> Firstly, that if we are now demanding build-time dependencies, we are
> asking maintainers to do a *lot* of work.  (This took me about 2
> hours, maybe a little bit more.)

As I said, this package is complicated.  For my packages, it has been
almost trivial to list the few build-time dependencies.

> Thirdly, of the packages listed, dpkg-dev and make are needed by every
> package build, so should not be needed to be listed.  I wonder whether
> we can have a tag "Build-Essential: yes" for a small number of
> packages which are assumed to be present on any builder, and that do
> not need to be listed?

It seems you have not read the amendment.  There was a mechanism for
this even in the first draft.

And I would have appreciated these comments at the proposal stage, when
we were still hammering out the thing.  I even called for people with
complicated packages to give their input when I made the proposal.

-- 
%%% Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho % gaia@iki.fi % http://www.iki.fi/gaia/ %%%

                                  ""
                             (John Cage)