Bug#572430: too picky build-dependency-missing check

[Rene Engelhard <rene@debian.org>]

Package: lintian
Version: 2.3.3
Severity: important

Hi,

got my writer2latex upload rejected with the following last night:

Reject Reasons:                                                                 
writer2latex source: lintian output: 'missing-build-dependency ant',            
automatically rejected package.                                                
writer2latex source: If you have a good reason, you may override this lintian   
tag.

Indeed:

E: writer2latex source: missing-build-dependency ant
N:
N:    The package doesn't specify a build dependency on a package that is used
N:    in debian/rules.
N:
N:    lintian intentionally does not take into account transitive
N:    dependencies. Even if the package build-depends on some package that in
N:    turn depends on the needed package, an explicit build dependency should
N:    be added. Otherwise, a latent bug is created that will appear without
N:    warning if the other package is ever updated to change its dependencies.
N:    Even if this seems unlikely, please always add explicit build
N:    dependencies on every non-essential, non-build-essential package that is
N:    used directly during the build.
N:
N:    Refer to Debian Policy Manual section 4.2 (Package relationships) for
N:    details.
N:
N:    Severity: serious, Certainty: possible

But I *do* build-depend on ant - ant1.7 | ant (<< 1.8.0~) to be precise, given
that ant 1.8.0 is broken when used with gcj, the gcj maintainers don't care,
and thus ant1.7 got uploaded which packages using gcj need to use (which this
upload is for)

(and yes, an1.7 provides ant and provides /usr/bin/ant etc.)

Regards,

Rene

-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-2-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=de_DE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages lintian depends on:
ii  binutils               2.20-6            The GNU assembler, linker and bina
ii  diffstat               1.47-1            produces graph of changes introduc
ii  dpkg-dev               1.15.5.6          Debian package development tools
ii  file                   5.04-1            Determines file type using "magic"
ii  gettext                0.17-9            GNU Internationalization utilities
ii  intltool-debian        0.35.0+20060710.1 Help i18n of RFC822 compliant conf
ii  libapt-pkg-perl        0.1.24            Perl interface to libapt-pkg
ii  libclass-accessor-perl 0.34-1            Perl module that automatically gen
ii  libipc-run-perl        0.84-1            Perl module for running processes
ii  libparse-debianchangel 1.1.1-2           parse Debian changelogs and output
ii  libtimedate-perl       1.2000-1          collection of modules to manipulat
ii  liburi-perl            1.52-1            module to manipulate and access UR
ii  locales                2.10.2-6          Embedded GNU C Library: National L
ii  locales-all [locales]  2.10.2-6          Embedded GNU C Library: Precompile
ii  man-db                 2.5.7-2           on-line manual pager
ii  perl [libdigest-sha-pe 5.10.1-11         Larry Wall's Practical Extraction 

lintian recommends no packages.

Versions of packages lintian suggests:
pn  binutils-multiarch            <none>     (no description available)
ii  libtext-template-perl         1.45-1     Text::Template perl module
ii  man-db                        2.5.7-2    on-line manual pager

-- no debconf information

-- 
Grüße/Regards,

Rene