Bug#683030: unblock: vlc/2.0.3-1

[Fabian Greffrath]

Dear Adam,

Am 29.07.2012 23:16, schrieb Adam D. Barratt:
>> I did not apply this change but recognize it from Emdebian sprint:
>> Reason is, I believe, to ease bootstrapping new architectures by
>> suppressing build of arch-all packages.

Jonas is right. The main reason for this change was to make it easier 
to bootstrap the libav package with as little additional 
(Build-)Dependencies as possible. Libav is involved in several 
circular dependencies and in the past we got requests by porters to 
document which B-Ds of libav are actually mandatory and which are 
optional. Since they are all optional, I suggested a minimal 
Build-Depends-Bootstrap1 field in README.source, in which I also 
omitted doxygen.

A few weeks later, when I rebuilt the libav package on my system with 
"dpkg-buildpackage -d" to test the changes fixing #680602, I found 
that doxygen is still called, which I found unnecessary and thus 
removed it.

> Hmmm, unless I'm reading the rules files incorrectly, purely running the
> binary-arch target should already have DTRT without requiring doxygen to
> be installed.  Hence the query, as the change appears to be effectively
> an unnecessary no-op right now.

Yes, for regular builds which have the full set of B-Ds available, 
this change is a no-op. But for (1) bootstrapping efforts - which 
merely need a minimal libav to build other packages which in turn are 
required to rebuild a full-featured libav - and for (2) quick testings 
of packaging related changes, this makes a subtle difference.

Best Regards,
Fabian