[Debian GNUstep maintainers] Bug#1112161: gnustep-base: Problematic dependency/usage on dpkg-dev

[Guillem Jover]

Package: gnustep-base
Version: 1.31.1-3
Severity: normal
X-Debbugs-Cc: debian-cross at lists.debian.org

Hi!

The libgnustep-base1.31 binary package has a run-time dependency on
dpkg-dev, because its shared library has been patched to use
dpkg-architecture to fetch the DEB_HOST_MULTIARCH variable.

Given that this is shared library package, the run-time dependency on
dpkg-dev ends up pulling the entire build-essential, and I think the
current reason for the dependency is problematic in any case.

The patch with those changes is supposedly to support the multiarch
layout and cross building, but it's not clear whether the cross
building changes could be restricted to the cross.config file, and the
changes to the Objective C file could be done by hardcoding the value
computed at configure time? Otherwise the shared library might
potentially end up returning the wrong pathname not matching its own
architecture (because dpkg-architecture will honor the
already set environment variables).

I just noticed this on a recently upgraded system (to Debian trixie),
which has otherwise no use for development files, and where
build-essential got pulled in.

Thanks,
Guillem