Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]


Groups > linux.debian.user > #195279

pkg-config: required as dep so often - How and where to report?

From Alexander Traud <pabstraud@compuserve.com>
Newsgroups linux.debian.user
Subject pkg-config: required as dep so often - How and where to report?
Date 2018-05-04 15:50 +0200
Message-ID <vLJfX-8mH-7@gated-at.bofh.it> (permalink)
Organization linux.* mail to news gateway

Show all headers | View raw


To compile a (quite large) project, I had to install several packages
(dependencies). The project required the tool pkg-config. However, that
was not mentioned anywhere. Still the project compiled/built, because
one of the other dependencies (libsrtp2-dev) installed pkg-config as
side effect. So, I had pure luck that it succeeded.

When a package declares another package as "Depends" or "Recommends" in
the file "control.in", it gets installed as side effect (Debian Policy).

However, libsrtp2-dev needs pkg-config only when I compile it myself.
Consequently, pkg-config should be declared just as Build-Depends. This
is a minor bug, I am going to report with that package. However then, I
investigated a bit more and found seven (optional) dependencies of that
project which would have installed pkg-config as a side effect too. OK,
this is a bigger issue. Then I investigated further:

$ apt-cache rdepends --no-suggests pkg-config

On Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, this gives me 250 development packages (-dev)
which install pkg-config as a side effect.

$ apt-cache rdepends --no-recommends --no-suggests pkg-config

Still 186 packages.

Those packages come with a .pc file. However, the tool pkg-config should
be "suggested" and not "required". Yes, this is a minor issue. However,
this looks like a broad issue. How and where do I report something broad
like this? Is there somebody which takes over or do I have to report
this 250 times? Perhaps this qualifies even for an update of the
Debian Policy like adding an example: pkg-config should be maximum of
"Suggests" when .pc file exists, even when "Build-Depends" included
pkg-config.

Or am I on the complete wrong track and this is not even a minor bug?

Back to linux.debian.user | Previous | Next — Next in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread


Thread

pkg-config: required as dep so often - How and where to report? Alexander Traud <pabstraud@compuserve.com> - 2018-05-04 15:50 +0200
  Re: pkg-config: required as dep so often - How and where to report? Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2018-05-04 16:00 +0200
    Re: pkg-config: required as dep so often - How and where to report? Sven Joachim <svenjoac@gmx.de> - 2018-05-04 17:30 +0200
      Re: pkg-config: required as dep so often - How and where to report? Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2018-05-04 17:40 +0200
  Re: pkg-config: required as dep so often - How and where to report? Sven Joachim <svenjoac@gmx.de> - 2018-05-04 17:50 +0200
    Re: pkg-config: required as dep so often - How and where to report? Alexander Traud <pabstraud@compuserve.com> - 2018-05-05 12:40 +0200
  Re: pkg-config: required as dep so often - How and where to report? deloptes <deloptes@gmail.com> - 2018-05-05 20:50 +0200
  Re: pkg-config: required as dep so often - How and where to report? Alexander Traud <pabstraud@compuserve.com> - 2018-06-11 13:40 +0200

csiph-web