Package: dpkg-dev Version: 1.18.18 Followup-For: Bug #817955 Sorry, but I don't follow the no-end-users reasoning. Some end users do need to rebuild a package for some reason or another. In addition, some people need to build packages for code that's not in Debian yet.
These people frequently end up using this option because they did not install dependencies (which is usually because they follow outdated installation instructions), notice that things don't work, and then annoy the program's author with a bug report -- which conveniently only lists the last couple of lines of output, requiring multiple go-arounds until the problem is identified. I am the current principal maintainer of knxd (not yet in Debian because I missed the freeze by three days, after converting from libpth[sem] to libev) and I get a "bug" like that every week or so. Keeping the reminder is not useful because, quite frankly, people who cross-port should know what they're doing. If not, "--help" is a couple of keystrokes away. So is editing debian/control and removing the dependency, which frequently is what you want to do anyway if your modified source is kept in your local git archive or whatever. Thus, I strongly recommend to remove that reminder. -- System Information: Debian Release: 9.0 APT prefers testing APT policy: (700, 'testing'), (650, 'unstable'), (600, 'stable'), (550, 'experimental') Architecture: amd64 (x86_64) Foreign Architectures: i386, armhf Kernel: Linux 4.9.0-rc5-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores) Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system) Versions of packages dpkg-dev depends on: ii binutils 2.27.51.20161220-1 ii bzip2 1.0.6-8 ii libdpkg-perl 1.18.18 ii make 4.1-9 ii patch 2.7.5-1 pn perl:any <none> ii tar 1.29b-1.1 ii xz-utils 5.2.2-1.2 Versions of packages dpkg-dev recommends: ii build-essential 12.2 ii fakeroot 1.21-3 ii gcc [c-compiler] 4:6.2.1-1 ii gcc-4.6 [c-compiler] 4.6.4-7 ii gcc-4.8 [c-compiler] 4.8.4-1 ii gcc-4.9 [c-compiler] 4.9.2-10 ii gcc-5 [c-compiler] 5.4.1-4 ii gcc-6 [c-compiler] 6.2.1-5 ii gnupg 2.1.17-2 ii gnupg2 2.1.17-2 ii gpgv 2.1.17-2 ii libalgorithm-merge-perl 0.08-3 Versions of packages dpkg-dev suggests: ii debian-keyring 2016.12.24 -- no debconf information
