Bug#733704: check for unnecessary automake dependency

[Eric Dorland]

Package: lintian
Version: 2.5.20
Severity: wishlist

Going through the latest automake transition made me realize that many
packages have an unnecessary build dependency on automake. They don't invoke
it directly or use it through dh-autoreconf.

A test would look something like:

- If there's a build dependency on any automake package fail unless:
  - it also build depends on dh-autoreconf or
  - it invokes automake or autoreconf in the debian/rules

I will probably take a stab at implementing this but any thoughts on how or
any other suggestions on other things to check would be appreciated.
  

-- System Information:
Debian Release: jessie/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 3.11-2-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages lintian depends on:
ii  binutils                       2.24-2
ii  bzip2                          1.0.6-5
ii  diffstat                       1.57-1
ii  file                           1:5.14-2
ii  gettext                        0.18.3.1-2
ii  hardening-includes             2.5
ii  intltool-debian                0.35.0+20060710.1
ii  libapt-pkg-perl                0.1.29+b1
ii  libarchive-zip-perl            1.30-7
ii  libclass-accessor-perl         0.34-1
ii  libclone-perl                  0.36-1
ii  libdpkg-perl                   1.17.5
ii  libemail-valid-perl            1.192-1
ii  libfile-basedir-perl           0.03-1
ii  libipc-run-perl                0.92-1
ii  liblist-moreutils-perl         0.33-1+b2
ii  libparse-debianchangelog-perl  1.2.0-1
ii  libtext-levenshtein-perl       0.06~01-2
ii  libtimedate-perl               2.3000-1
ii  liburi-perl                    1.60-1
ii  man-db                         2.6.5-2
ii  patchutils                     0.3.2-3
ii  perl [libdigest-sha-perl]      5.18.1-5
ii  t1utils                        1.37-2

Versions of packages lintian recommends:
ii  libautodie-perl                 2.21-1
ii  libperlio-gzip-perl             0.18-1+b3
ii  perl-modules [libautodie-perl]  5.18.1-5

Versions of packages lintian suggests:
pn  binutils-multiarch     <none>
ii  dpkg-dev               1.17.5
ii  libhtml-parser-perl    3.71-1+b1
pn  libtext-template-perl  <none>
ii  xz-utils               5.1.1alpha+20120614-2

-- no debconf information


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