Bug#648043: Too strict dependencies on binutils, maybe due to inappropriate dynamic linking with binutils libraries?

[nisse@lysator.liu.se (Niels Möller)]

Package: nitpic
Version: 0.1-12

The nitpic package seems to depend on a very particular version of
binutils,

# info: nitpic depends on binutils << 2.21.90.20111005 (ok, testing has
  version 2.21.90.20111004-2)
# info: nitpic depends on binutils >= 2.21.90.20111004 (ok, testing
  has version 2.21.90.20111004-2)

hence blocking migration of newer binutils to testing ("Updating
binutils makes 2 non-depending packages uninstallable on i386: lush,
nitpic", see
http://release.debian.org/migration/testing.pl?package=binutils), and
also blocking anything which depends on newer binutils, e.g., version
3.0.0-6 of the linux-2.6 package.

I suspect the dependencies are put in automagically because of
dynamically (rather than statically) linking to one or both of libbfd
and libopcodes. Which is a bad thing to do, as explained in the thread
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/05/msg01085.html.

I have already filed a similar bug report on the other package, lush,
which blocks binutils in a similar way, see
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=648014.

Regards,
/Niels Möller

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