Recently there was a discussion about using scratchbox to do the building for
the mini-debian part of the emdebian project. (See
http://lists.debian.org/debian-embedded/2004/debian-embedded-200401/msg00052.html
for reference). Since I have now had the time to look into it I have a few
remarks:
1. It's apparently a fine system (I should try it once)
2. Unfortunately it seems quite complex to set up (however with decent packages it
should be less of a problem)
3. The major drawback is the need for a working (target)-board. This is not very
very useful when doing development for a new platform, and some boards do not
have the resources to run the whole environment
Because of these reasons I would keep it for difficult and not to common software.
Like for example X (with the mini-debian this could be used more often, but for
the typical embedded application this is not commonly used). I would try to make
as much workarounds as possible in the rules file (makefile for debian source
package) as these work-around would remain valid for quite a while, and makes
rebuilding by developer easier.