[Build-common-hackers] Re: circular dependency fun

[paulwade@greenbush.com]

On Fri, 3 Oct 2003, Colin Walters wrote:

> On Fri, 2003-10-03 at 14:11, Jeff Bailey wrote:
>
> > I don't think it is.  Debian is full of these circular dependancies -
> > The ability to simply bootstrap the system isn't a release requirement -
> > Which is good, because taken to an extreme, you need gcc to build gcc.
>
> Right.
>
> > I think we might already accomidate this by coping gracefully if
> > springgraph isn't there.
>
> Yep, exactly.  More specifically my vague rule is that the actual
> requirements are listed on the first line of the Build-Depends (right
> now just debhelper); everything after it is noncritical and can be
> safely deleted.  (If that doesn't work, it's definitely a bug).
>

I tend to agree and that's why I didn't file a bug report. I think it is
up to the package maintainers to work these things out or possibly decide
that they can't be avoided in some cases. I know of nothing in policy that
mandates a bug report for this. My intention in emailing the package
maintainers was to make them aware of a situation that can sometimes lead
up to real bugs.