Bug#837060: debootstrap: Do not install packages of Priority:required for buildd variant
Package: debootstrap
Version: 1.0.81
Severity: normal
Hi,
in Debian, every binary package implicitly depends on all binary
packages marked as Essential:yes and every source package implicitly
build-depends on the binary package build-essential. Policy §4.2 says:
| it must be possible to build the package and produce working binaries
| on a system with only essential and build-essential packages installed
| and also those required to satisfy the build-time relationships
| (including any implied relationships).
Currently, programs in Debian that facilitate building source packages
in "clean" environments like sbuild and pbuilder use debootstrap to
create this "minimal" environment. Specifically, they use the buildd
variant provided by debootstrap.
Unfortunately it seems that in addition to installing the minimum
required packages (all Essential:yes, build-essential and (unfortunately
necessarily) apt), debootstrap also installs all packages marked as
Priority:required (and their transitive dependencies).
Thus, it can easily happen that source packages in Debian do not
correctly declare their build dependencies on packages that are
Priority:required because they happen to always be installed in
virtually any environment that the source package will probably ever be
built in (because they were all created by debootstrap).
I think this is a bug in the package list installed by the buildd
variant. Since the buildd variant is meant to provide a clean and
minimal environment to build source packages, it should try hard not to
install any extra packages which would then make it impossible to test
whether a source package is policy compliant in the build dependencies
it declares.
Thank you!
cheers, josch
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