Inflation of explicit build requirements

[Michael Schwendt]

On Sat, 05 Jun 2004 15:17:10 +0200, Leonard den Ottolander wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> > >     /bin/bash, /bin/sh, bzip2, cpio, diffutils, gcc, gcc-c++, gzip, make,
> > >     patch, perl, python, redhat-rpm-config, rpm-build, rpm-python, sed,
> > >     tar, unzip
> > 
> > > Better let's discuss whether above set should be extended. E.g. with
> > > 'gettext' and 'desktop-file-utils', as they are needed by many src.rpms.
> > 
> > + patchutils?

Do you know of any src.rpm which buildrequires this?

> zip?

Same here. There are a few src.rpms which need 'unzip' for uncompressing
source archives. But if any needs zip, that would be rare enough to let
the packager "Buildrequires: zip".

> automake* ? autoconf* ?

Without the '*' I would agree.

> readline &/ -devel?

readline-devel is not needed often enough either. Even in Core,
'rpm --redhatrequires libreadline.so.4' doesn't print many packages.

> byacc?
> bison?

Either one at most, so it would be well-defined whether a program
uses 'bison -y' or yacc.

> pkgconfig?

Should be moved up higher to the root of a dependency chain. That means,
foo-devel should "Require: pkgconfig" already when it places header files
and libraries in custom directories and provides pkgconfig template files.

> m4?

Should be implicit with aclocal, automake and friends.

> binutils?

Dependency of gcc.

> symlinks?

Much more and end-user tool -- and if used at all in src.rpms, a suitable
candidate for explicit buildrequires.

> flex?

Yes.

> Can't think of any more
> > right now :) .
> 
> + libtool of course!

Maybe. (It requires libtool-libs and hence provides GNU ltdl.)