Re: Keeping information on the build system

[Bill Allombert <allomber@math.u-bordeaux.fr>]

I like this idea.

As we allow alternative build depends, it may be important to keep track of
which packages and version has been really used in the build process,
especially when it is done by autobuilders.

Also sometime it is useful to bypass build-depends:
configure scripts may add optional libraries if they find them.
If the builder does not provide them, the package will not have
the optional capability. It is nice to keep track of it inside
the package.

I am not sure "recursive" build-depends being useful, because they often loop,
and are not reproducible in practice. The version of the build-depended version
should be sufficient in practice, because we can download them to reproduce the
build.


Bill. <ballombe@debian.org>