Package: libblas-dev Version: 3.7.1-1 User: helm...@debian.org Usertags: rebootstrap Control: affects -1 + src:lp-solve
libblas-dev Depends on gfortran and it provides libblas.so. Most users depend on it with the libblas.so alternative. Another libblas.so provider, libatlas-base-dev, does not depend on gfortran. Thus when depending on libblas-dev | libblas.so, one cannot currently assume that gfortran is present. That makes the gfortran dependency look weird. This issue causes practical problems, because dose-builddebcheck finds an installation set for cross building lp-solve that notably doesn't include libblas-dev, but includes libatlas-base-dev instead. Trying to build it with sbuild and the default resolver fails though as apt doesn't consider this solution. I see a number of routes forward here, each of which causes a change in some package: 1. libblas-dev should demote its gfortran dependency to recommends acknowledging the current state where libblas.so does not ensure gfortran presence. 2. libatlas-base-dev should start depending on gfortran. I strongly prefer the former option, because gfortran is a compiler and thus needs toolchain dependency translation for cross building. Such translation is not yet available in the archive and any such dependency will make the affected packages unusable for cross building. It also looks like not every user of libblas-dev does need gfortran (e.g. lp-solve doesn't need it). Some (currently buggy) packages may need the explicit gfortran dependency then. Please either demote the dependency or reassign this bug to libatlas-base-dev. Helmut -- debian-science-maintainers mailing list debian-science-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/debian-science-maintainers
