On Sun, Feb 25, 2001 at 08:39:23PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > If you want packages to support build-depends, start filing wishlist bugs > against packages that don't have build-depends. If you want to actually > do something particularly useful, work out what each package's build > dependencies are so the maintainer can just cut, paste and reupload.
Anthony, I don't mean to pick on you, but you seem to be clearly stating a mistake that I see several people make implicitly :) (Mainly on debian-devel, where this proposal is also being discussed.) It is perfectly possible for a package to have no build dependencies other than on build-essential packages. So there is nothing wrong with "packages that don't have build-depends" unless they actually need some. I make this point from self-interest. I have a few packages like that, and I'd prefer not to get one misguided bugreport after another (not to mention Lintian warnings) about them not having Build-Depends. So please keep this in mind when formulating a new policy. Richard Braakman
