Bug#274747: dependency on dpkg-dev is not required for provides

[Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>]

Hi!

On Mon, 2009-10-12 at 10:54:07 +0200, Aurelien Jarno wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 08:43:16PM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote:
> > Package: type-handling
> > Version: 0.2.23
> > Severity: normal
> > 
> > This issue has just become somewhat more commonplace:
> > gnome-desktop-environment now uses type-handling, depending on
> > "gnome-mount | linux-gnu", and on "policykit-1-gnome | not+linux-gnu".
> > Note that gnome-desktop-environment, as a metapackage, uses
> > "Architecture: all".  This seems like a very useful application of
> > type-handling.
> > 
> > Please, consider splitting the provides into a separate package which
> > does not depend on dpkg-dev.
>
> type-handling has always been a hack to workaround missing features of
> dpkg-dev, and it should disappear asap.
> 
> dpkg has already support for architecture aliases for a few years, as
> far as I remember it can't be used due to missing support on the
> build daemons.
>
> Could the dpkg team (Cc:ed) can give us a more detailed status of this
> feature, so that we can push it for Squeeze?

That only works for arch:any packages, here the problem is related to
an arch:all package. The wildcards on arch:any packages should be
mostly usable, last time I checked it was pending for all buildd to
be switched to the new sbuild (which has such support).

Adding wildcard support to arch:all packages would imply a wait time
of one release before being usable, as the syntax of the dependncy
fields would change.

Another possibility is to switch the package to an arch:any one. It's
a metapackages anyway so it does not take much space on the servers. And
actually an argument could be made that an arch:all package which
requires different dependencies on different architectures is not a
trully arch:all package.

regards,
guillem