Richard Braakman writes ("Bug#41232: Bug #41232: [AMENDMENT 1999-07-23]
Build-time dependencies on binary packages"):
...
> I think something like
> package (>= 42) [i386]
> would be better. This cleanly separates two different things, and it allows
> more flexibility in the architecture specifier. We may want something
> like [i386 m68k sparc] (for example, and altgcc dependency), and perhaps
> even [!hurd-i386], and it will still look good.
I agree. Overloading the () metacharacters is a bad idea.
Ian.
