Re: Problem with libpaperg in testing

[Brian May <bam@debian.org>]

>>>>> "Adrian" == Adrian Bunk <bunk@fs.tum.de> writes:

    Adrian> That doesn't help in my case: The dependency on debconf
    Adrian> isn't generated by shlibs (then this problem wouldn't
    Adrian> occur), but I have to set the right dependency for what I
    Adrian> use in the postinst. I'm sure the broken version of
    Adrian> libpaperg builds perfectly in testing.

I may have misunderstood the issues involved here, so please correct
me if I am wrong. I make the following assumptions:

- a package must be built with a specific version of debconf.
- a package built with debconf in unstable must depend on the debconf
version in unstable.

It really sounds like the dependency for debconf needs to be generated
dynamically, based on what version of debconf is used to build the
package. Perhaps some debconf helper function should be used to get
the version required for the Depends field?

(this would also mean that the package can be used by people who
recompile for potato, without having to change the source code).


IMHO static dependencies[1] should only be used when they don't vary
with the build environment. I don't think you can rely on
build-depends here, as it wouldn't help in this case (build-depends
can only realistically give the minimum version of debconf required;
later versions of debconf may still be accepted by debconf, even
though later versions of debconf have different Depends:
requirements).


Note:
[1] I am not talking about build-depends here, as currently build-depends
*must* be static.
-- 
Brian May <bam@debian.org>