Re: Deps of -dev packages with pkg-config .pc file: Policy Change?
Simon McVittie <smcv@debian.org> writes:
> For some libraries, the only maintainer-supported way to consume the
> library is via pkg-config. If that's the case, then a dependency on
> pkg-config can be appropriate - although we don't add a dependency on
> cc or binutils, which is equally necessary.
Well, cc and binutils are in build-essential, so this isn't entirely
equivalent.
> For other libraries, either there are other supported ways to consume
> the library (CMake metadata or sdl2-config or similar), or the library
> is in the compiler's default search paths (not parallel-installable)
> like libjpeg - so you *can* use pkg-config, but you don't *have* to.
Yeah, I think this is the key point: it's entirely possible to use most
libraries without pkg-config because they're installed into the default
search paths, so you can just... use them.
If they *require* special flags (non-standard paths, non-standard compiler
flags, etc.) such that pkg-config is the only supported interface, then I
think one could make a good argument that pkg-config should be a
dependency of the -dev package.
> That's why I think it is best that the information about which libraries
> GLib depends on is shipped with GLib and included by reference (via
> either Requires.private: glib-2.0, or the Requires.internal: glib-2.0
> proposed on https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=105572),
> instead of copying the information about GLib's dependencies into
> libfoo-dev where it will become outdated when GLib changes.
Yes.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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