Where does /usr/bin/rename come from ?

[Charles Plessy <charles-debian-nospam@plessy.org>]

Dear mentors,

I wanted to use /usr/bin/rename in a rules files, and wondered if it
would be present in minimal installs and chroots. To my surprise,
although this program is available on my computer running Etch from a
fresh install, no Debian package contains rename anymore (it was provided
by perl in Sarge).

Can I use it safely for building a package since I can not build-depend
on it and it does not seem to be contained in an essential package ?

Have a nice day,

-- 
Charles Plessy
http://charles.plessy.org
Wako, Saitama, Japan