Re: The ghost of libc-dev

[Bill Allombert <allomber@math.u-bordeaux.fr>]

On Thu, Feb 17, 2005 at 02:05:56PM -0700, Joel Aelwyn wrote:
> So, while discussing a bug in a -dev with the maintainer, recently, it
> reminded me to review an old thread from d-devel regarding the weird
> situation with libc-dev as a pure virtual package.
> 
> The summary is this:
> 
> *) The 'libc-dev' package is a pure virtual package, roughly meaning
> "provides the headers and symlinks for C library development".
> 
> *) The standard way of doing this today is to have a -dev package which
> needs libc headers Depend on 'libc6-dev | libc-dev' to avoid the situation
> of having only a pure-virtual package.

I have a genuine question:
Consider a -dev package that Depends on libc6-dev. Is there any drawback
to make it Depends on libc-dev instead ?

1) libc6-dev is a purely virtual dependency on alpha and ia64. libc-dev is
a purely virtual dependency evrywhere, but is it really worse ?

2) The 'Depends: libc6-dev' has no bearing on buildd, since a package
providing libc6-dev is always installed as part of build-essential.

So, am I overlooking something ? I am not objecting to make it depends on
'libc6-dev | libc-dev' but I don't see the point.

Thanks in advance for any enlightenment.
-- 
Bill. <ballombe@debian.org>

Imagine a large red swirl here.