Build-Dependencys and backports

[Erich Schubert <erich@debian.org>]

Hi,
there is a common practise with build dependencies that i consider
"abuse", although it is described in best-packaging-practises.

http://www.netfort.gr.jp/~dancer/column/libpkg-guide/libpkg-guide.html#BINARYCOMPAT

"And start recompiling every package that is linked against libfooX
against the libfooX-dev, updating the Build-Depends accordingly (to
build-depend on a version greater than the newly created libfooX-dev)."

This common practise makes package backporting more work.
For the packages i backported to woody i often had to drop some "fixed"
build dependency and replace it with the old value.

IMHO we should use other means to tell the autobuilders which packages
they should use for building than build-dependencies.
Actually the package does often not build-depend on the version. It have
a runtime conflict with packages built with the older version, or it
might build-conflict with a particular version of a package.

All we would need is to teach autobuilders not to use a certain version
of a package any more. At minimum a package maintainer should undo the
dependency as soon as all architectures are fixed.

Greetings,
Erich Schubert
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