On Sun, Feb 08, 2026 at 10:54:33AM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote: > Bill Allombert <[email protected]> writes: > > On Sun, Feb 08, 2026 at 12:49:40PM +0000, Sean Whitton wrote: > > >> LGTM, though as suggested by subsequent discussion, maybe you could > >> expand the last sentence's discussion to include reference to the other > >> sorts of packages that Bill and Simon raise -- especially the crypto > >> libs case. > > > I would like to add that the flags set by dpkg-buildflags are not > > defined by the Debian policy. > > I think that's true, if I understand what you mean by "defined," but I'm > not sure why it matters. Could you say more?
A lot of Debian packages contain libraries and headers files that can be used by Debian users to compile software. These packages are not supposed to be restricted to the purpose of building other Debian packages. On the other hand Debian users are not expected to use the same flags as dpkg-buildflags set, so the libaries provided by Debian should not require the use of dpkg-buildflags. In the original issue leading to this bug report, it was suggested to add a flag to dpkg-buildflags that would change the ABI on some architecture. Doing so would have required users to use the same flags when compiling software using the libraries. Ultimately, the flags were set directly at the compiler level which sidesteps this issue as long as the user use a Debian-provided compiler. In conclusion, any requirement to build Debian package with a certain compiler flag must address the issue of user-build software and not rely on dpkg-buildflags. Thus I think this sentence to be overstated: 'the package maintainer is prepared to track future changes to the default compiler flags and update the package as necessary' Cheers, -- Bill. <[email protected]> Imagine a large red swirl here.
