Bug#904248: Add netbase to build-essential

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Hi,

Sean Whitton wrote:

> Thank you for the discussion, Ian and Simon.  Here is the beginnings of
> a patch:
>
>> diff --git a/policy/ch-source.rst b/policy/ch-source.rst
>> index 9e7d79c..f27226e 100644
>> --- a/policy/ch-source.rst
>> +++ b/policy/ch-source.rst
>> @@ -40,9 +40,15 @@ example, if building a package requires a certain compiler, then the
>>  compiler should be specified as a build-time dependency.
>>
>>  It is not necessary to explicitly specify build-time relationships on a
>> -minimal set of packages that are always needed to compile, link and put
>> -in a Debian package a standard "Hello World!" program written in C or
>> -C++. The required packages are called *build-essential*, and an
>> +minimal set of packages that are always needed
>> +
>> +- to compile, link and put in a Debian package a standard "Hello
>> +  World!"  program written in C or C++; and
>> +
>> +- for the package build to resolve the system hostname to a
>> +  fully-qualified domain name using the C standard library. [#]_

Looks okay to me.  As an alternative, we could encourage packages to
add an explicit Build-Depends on netbase if they need this
functionality.

I think in the long run, I would prefer that since it would make the
concept of build-essential easier for new packagers to learn.  Can we
both make it build-essential and recommend that packages include the
Build-Depends (as a policy "should" instead of a "must") to get the
best of both worlds?  That way, we'd have a path to eventually
simplifying back again.

Thanks,
Jonathan