Package: gnustep-base Version: 1.31.1-3 Severity: normal X-Debbugs-Cc: [email protected]
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
