Bug#41232: debian-policy: [PROPOSAL] Build-time dependencies on binary packages

[Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net>]

Steve Greenland wrote:
> Hmmm. I tend to think of the first stanza in debian/control as the
> "global" stanza, and the rest as "per package". Therefore, the use
> of Section/Priority is entirely consistent -- default in the first
> stanza, overrides where necessary. Thus, having "Depends" in the global
> stanza strikes me as confusing, because there is no connection with the
> "Depends" in the rest of the file.

Yes, I tend to look at it that way too. Unfortunatly, I think it's really a
mixture of both source and global fields.

However, this got me thinking. Antti-Juhani said earlier, referring to
indep-depends and arch-depends:

  Most packages will use only Depends and Conflicts.  The other fields 
  are useful with multi-binary packages.

Well, if the first stanza is global, how about being able to put the fields
in the other stanzas too, to control dependancies on a per-binary-package
basis? You would need to name them prefix, though. Something like:

Source: foo
Section: bar
Maintainer: Joey Hess <joeyh@master.debian.org>
Standards-Version: 2.5.0.0
Build-Depends: debhelper
Build-Conflicts: evil-package

Package: foo-doc
Architecture: all
Build-Depends: sgml-tools
...

Package: foo
Architecture: any
Build-depends: aalib1g-dev, flex
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}
...

So foo-doc needs debhelper and sgml-tools to build, while foo needs
debhelper, aalib1g-dev and flex.

-- 
see shy jo