At 00:14 +0100 1999-10-26, Julian Gilbey wrote:
Just a question which I haven't thoroughly investigated yet: I'm about to add #41232 (source dependencies) to the next policy version. But will this break existing tools? In particular, will the dpkg* tools yet be able to build a package using a Source-Depends: field, or will they die? If the latter, then we need a dpkg NMU (Wichert? Ben?) before this can be placed in policy.
The tools ignore fields that they don't understand. However, dpkg-dev does need to be modified to know the fields specifically or it will not pass them through from the control file (which is done in dpkg CVS).
I do have a problem with the text for policy; it does not explain the difference between Build-Indep-{Depends,Conflicts} and Build-{Depends,Conflicts}. I don't have a clear idea of the difference, and I participated in the discussion of the proposal. Someone who simply reads the new policy will have no clue (besides perhaps guessing that the -Indep form has some relation to binary-indep) what exactly the difference is and in what situations each is used.
-- Joel Klecker (aka Espy) Debian GNU/Linux Developer <URL:mailto:jk@espy.org> <URL:mailto:espy@debian.org> <URL:http://web.espy.org/> <URL:http://www.debian.org/>