* Helmut Grohne <[email protected]> [2019-07-28 22:32]:
Package: liboctave-dev
Version: 4.4.1-6
Tags: patch
User: [email protected]
Usertags: cross-satisfiability
Control: affects -1 + src:mathgl
mathgl fails to satisfy its cross Build-Depends, because its dependency
on liboctave-dev is not satisfiable. liboctave-dev depends on toolchain
packages such as gcc, g++ or gfortran. This is very unusual. Most
commonly, C-libraries can depend on other C-libraries, but users are
expected to install their desired toolchain themselves. These
dependencies need toolchain dependency translation in order to work for
cross building. Unfortunately, toolchain dependency translation is not
yet implemented. Thus I think removing these dependencies is required. I
looked into debian/changelog for why they were added and couldn't find a
reason. Can we simply drop them?
I think that the reason is historical. At least since version 2.1.64-3,
released 14 years ago, g++ and g77 | fort77 appear as dependencies of
octave2.1-headers. [1] The package octave2.1-headers is the predecessor
of liboctave-dev.
This dependency may have been introduced before this version, but version
control started at that point and there is no way to figure out now when
and why those dependencies were introduced.
I would say that it is okay to drop the dependencies on gcc, g++ and
gfortran, as you suggest, but I will let the other members of the
Debian Octave comment on this issue.
Rafaek
[1]
https://salsa.debian.org/pkg-octave-team/octave/blob/be338881462f4e5b45483eb2d18b7fab059c057e/debian/control
