Re: mach needs "redundant" BuildRequires

[Stefan van der Eijk <stefan eijk nu>]

Michael Schwendt wrote:

> On Mon, 08 Mar 2004 21:22:36 +0100, Stefan van der Eijk wrote:
>
>  
>
> > Due to the fact that -devel packages have no *automatic* dependencies 
> > added to them, there is no significant dependency structure in them. 
> > This makes getting the right BuildRequires for the packages nearly 
> > impossible. This issue and the solution Mandrake chose to implement are 
> > documented here:
> >    http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/RpmDevelDependencies
> >    
>
> Fetching dependencies from pkgconfig templates is missing on that
> page. Pkgconfig has an own dependency chain. When a -devel package gets
> installed and contains support for pkgconfig,
>
>  pkg-config --list-all
>
> should not fail due to a broken chain of dependencies. The package should
> require every [-devel] package needed to complete the dependencies listed
> in the pkgconfig file.

I agree with you. But don't you agree that the functionality that the 
devel() depedencies provides is already a lot better than letting the 
packager decide what the dependencies will be (by specifying them in the 
.spec file). Of course a packager can still specify them if he wants to.

Perhaps we can explore the possibilities that a pkg-config related 
dependency scheme can bring, perhaps complementing the devel() 
dependencies. The trick will be to find a way to find the pkgconfig 
capabilites a package Requires *and* what pkgconfig capabilites a 
package Provides.

regards,

Stefan van der Eijk

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