Re: Bug#604397: Request for TC to rule on a course of action for supporting build-arch

[Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>]

Hi,

On Mon, 06 Jun 2011, Roger Leigh wrote:
> Has the following been considered:
> - adding a command-line option for dpkg-buildpackage to explicitly
>   enable particular build-features (overriding the feature in the
>   source package).

This has not been suggested yet, I'm not opposed to the idea and would
probably merge a patch for it.

> The question to consider here is whether or not this particular build
> feature is "transitional" or if it will remain indefinitely.

That really depends on the outcome of the policy process and/or the
tech-ctte decision.

I'm not opposed to anything although I do believe that the split
between build-arch and build-indep is only useful for a minority of
packages.

> We don't currently have an option to build /only/ binary-indep
> packages, but this might be useful for arch-all autobuilding if we
> don't want to build them at the same time as for binary-arch.
> In this case, would we still want to install Build-Depends and
> Build-Depends-Indep?  (I would think so.)

Yes, Build-Depends is required for the clean target.

> We don't currently have a Build-Depends-Arch and Build-Conflicts-Arch;
> but this might be useful.  This would allow Build-Depends to be used
> for "generic" dependencies required for both build-arch and
> build-indep, e.g. debhelper, cdbs etc.  And it would mean that when
> doing a binary-indep-only build, the buildd won't need to install
> masses of -dev packages which won't be used, since they would be in
> Build-Depends-Arch.

I don't think that we need to optimize the build process for the
arch-all buildd.

It's not a big deal if we install too many packages... the added
complexity on the other hand is worrying. But it would probably be cleaner
and maybe clearer (the lack of symetry between Build-Depends and
Build-Depends-Indep has confused many people).

Cheers,
-- 
Raphaël Hertzog ◈ Debian Developer

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