Bug#1027832: debian-policy: Please clarify that priority required packages are not automatically build essential
El 4/1/23 a las 2:32, Sam Hartman escribió: "Santiago" == Santiago Vila writes: Santiago> As an example, packages tzdata, mount or e2fsprogs are not Santiago> build-essential and afaik have not been for a long time, Santiago> but there are still people who believe that they are Santiago> build-essential for the mere fact that they are Santiago> priority:required. Why not just make all required packages build-essential? I agree we should fix the class of bugs you are talking about, but it seems like in some cases it might be easier to fix them by declaring them not buggy. Because required to build != required in a _running_ system The idea of declaring something not a bug to avoid fixing it is not very appealing to me. I believe we can do better than that. The proposal made in bug #837060 (namely, that debootstrap stops installing packages not build essential when using the buildd profile) is IMO the optimal way to fix the problem at its root, because once that packages with missing build-depends start failing in the buildds, then it will be clear for everybody that there is a missing build-depends. (The initial email in such bug by Johannes Schauer describes the problem very well). Thanks.
Bug#1027832: debian-policy: Please clarify that priority required packages are not automatically build essential
> "Santiago" == Santiago Vila writes: Santiago> As an example, packages tzdata, mount or e2fsprogs are not Santiago> build-essential and afaik have not been for a long time, Santiago> but there are still people who believe that they are Santiago> build-essential for the mere fact that they are Santiago> priority:required. Why not just make all required packages build-essential? I agree we should fix the class of bugs you are talking about, but it seems like in some cases it might be easier to fix them by declaring them not buggy.
Bug#1027832: debian-policy: Please clarify that priority required packages are not automatically build essential
Package: debian-policy Version: 4.6.2.0 Severity: wishlist Hello. This is an attempt to put the basis for fixing this bug: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=837060 As an example, packages tzdata, mount or e2fsprogs are not build-essential and afaik have not been for a long time, but there are still people who believe that they are build-essential for the mere fact that they are priority:required. Therefore I think a clarification would be useful to clear those kind of misconceptions. Proposed text, to be added after the paragraph which defines build essential based on the Hello World example: -- From this definition it follows that packages of required priority are not necessarily build essential, as it is possible for some them not to be needed at all to compile, link and put in a Debian package a Hello World program written in C or C++. -- Next step would be to add a paragraph saying tools like debootstrap when used to create chroots for building (i.e. "buildd" profile in deboostrap) should try to keep the list of installed packages as minimal as possible, as far as doing so does not become disruptive (for example, apt is technically not build-essential but it is required to install the build-dependencies). Thanks.
