Bug#606221: pbuilder depends on gcc (or... not)

[Matthew Palmer]

> Am Dienstag, den 07.12.2010, 17:31 +0100 schrieb Loïc Minier:
> > On Tue, Dec 07, 2010, Daniel Leidert wrote:
> > > pbuilder depends on gcc, so it pulls in a compiler on a system, where
> > > I don't want to have a compiler for everybody. But why does it depend
> > > on gcc? There is no gcc dependency for (c)debootstrap like stated in
> > > the changelog entry for 0.10. Further the gcc dependency had been
> > > removed in version 0.187. There is no information about why it has
> > > been re-added nor when? Can this dependency please be dropped
> > > (fortunately already for squeeze) or downgraded?
> > 
> >  This might be for dpkg-dev/dpkg-source which guesses the host system by
> >  looking at gcc -dumpmachine; see /usr/share/perl5/Dpkg/Arch.pm
>
> Well, dpkg-dev recommends gcc, but pbuilder does not even depend on
> dpkg-dev. It recommends devscripts, which then depends on dpkg-dev. But
> if using --use-pdebuild-internal then the existence of these packages is
> IMO not required. I can't see a reason for this dependency and the
> changelog doesn't tell, why it had been re-added. IMO it is safe to
> downgrade this dependency to a recommendation (like dpkg-dev does) or
> drop it completely for pbuilder.

I don't understand what you want from pbuilder here.  As of 0.199, pbuilder
doesn't depend on gcc; apt-cache show pbuilder, the pbuilder git repo, and
the dependency info you submitted in this bug report all make no mention of
gcc.  If a package that pbuilder legitimately recommends needs gcc to do
it's job, well, so be it -- you need to discuss the gcc dependency and it's
necessity (or lack thereof) with that package, not pbuilder.

- Matt