[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thomas Bushnell, BSG) writes: > Bdale Garbee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > It isn't *quite* that simple. Explicit build dependencies should only be > > for packages that are neither essential nor build-essential. > > But it's entirely harmless to mention them; this is an area where it's > better to err on the side of liberality than frugality.
I'd be tempted to agree with you, except... I've spent quite a bit of time recently dealing with packages that include an explicit build dependency on "libstdc++2.10-dev". This is not necessary since it is a dependency for an item in build-essential, and is in fact called out explicitly in the build-essential documentation. It breaks the ability to build the package with gcc-3.0. That will matter to everyone eventually, and matters to hppa and ia64 right now. Admittedly, a dependency on, say, 'gzip' is less likely to cause problems in the future than the libstdc++ thing... but I'd rather see people craft Build-Depends correctly and minimally. Bdale
