Re: Source-depends?

[ron@microtronics.com.au (Ron)]

> > > Some of these can be detected automatically (#5 could be discovered with a
> > > grep on debian/rules, for example), but some can't.
> > 
> > So, what's the problem?  We don't autodetect all of binary dependencies
> > either.  Maintainers generally know what they need to build their packages;
> > it should be trivial for them to list the dependencies explicitly!
> > 
> > Besides, if source dependencies were completely autodetectable, we wouldn't
> > need them.
> 
> Agreed. We don't need any magic, just a common location for that useful
> piece of information.

This seems like a very rational place to start..  we need a control field
to describe source dependencies before we can have any magic (ordinary or
otherwise;) that will use them..

How then do we get this a step closer to reality..  should this become a
formal policy proposal for including a source-depends description to the
control files, or do we handball this to the team that will ultimately
undertake the rehash of the packaging system?

I think I'd like to see dpkg-ng handling *both* source and binary package
installs in the future, but perhaps someone has reasons that I am misguided
in this??

best,
Ron.