[Fedora-packaging] pkgconfig as BuildRequires really needed?

[Parag N(पराग़)]

Hi,

On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 9:41 PM, Ralf Corsepius <rc040203 at freenet.de> wrote:
> On 06/22/2010 05:55 PM, Parag N(पराग़) wrote:
>> Hi,
>>     I see minimal build environment always pulling pkgconfig and also
>> we have " There is no need to include the following packages or their
>> dependencies as BuildRequires because they would occur too often."
>> written in packaging guidelines[1]. Does this mean I can recommend in
>> new package reviews or existing package owners to drop BuildRequires:
>> pkgconfig in spec files?
>
> No, packages which utilize pkg-config while building should require
> BR: pkgconfig.
>
> The fact pkgconfig is often indirectly pulled-in (in most cases by other
> *-devel packages) while building is a just a reflection of the state of
> these "other packages" were in when they had been built.
>
> Though it's unlikely to happen, they may drop or loose their *.pc's at
> any time and thus loose this implicit dependency on pkgconfig.
>
> What is supposed to be safe is to drop "Requires: pkgconfig", because
> today's rpmbuild is supposed to add this dependency automatically.
>
 This can confuse packagers if they forgot to add BR: pkgconfig( I
know there comes reviewer's job to check it), but koji build still
succeeds as pkgconfig already present in build environment and
guidelines only said packages installed in buildroot are not needed to
be BR in spec.

Parag.