Bug#999826: debian-policy: fix Build-Depends footnoteo

[Bill Allombert <ballombe@debian.org>]

On Wed, Nov 17, 2021 at 11:10:54AM +0100, Johannes Schauer Marin Rodrigues wrote:
> Source: debian-policy
> Version: 4.6.0.1
> Severity: normal
> X-Debbugs-Cc: josch@debian.org
> 
> Hi,
> 
> currently, footnote [1] of §7 states:
> 
> > While Build-Depends, Build-Depends-Indep and Build-Depends-Arch permit
> > the use of alternative dependencies, these are not normally used by the
> > Debian autobuilders. To avoid inconsistency between repeated builds of a
> > package, the autobuilders will default to selecting the first
> > alternative, after reducing any architecture-specific restrictions for
> > the build architecture in question. While this may limit the usefulness
> > of alternatives in a single release, they can still be used to provide
> > flexibility in building the same package across multiple distributions
> > or releases, where a particular dependency is met by differently named
> > packages.
> 
> There are multiple problems with this footnote:
> 
> 1. "they are not normally used by the Debian autobuilders" should
>    instead be "they are never used by the Debian autobuilders" or it
>    should state when they are used and when they are not

If the base system on top of which the build-dependencies are to be
installed already include one of the alternative then it is used in
preference to the others.

Cheers,
-- 
Bill. <ballombe@debian.org>

Imagine a large red swirl here.