Build Dependencies vs. Runtime Dependencies?

[Toan Pham]

Hi all,

I am not an expert at building software packages.
I hope that someone can clarify this for me.

is there a difference (or such a thing) between a build dependency and
a package runtime dependency?

Well, i was upgrading FF from version 3.5.5 to 3.6b4 and i noticed
that it complained that I did not have
package 'libnotify >= 0.4'. I looked in my distro for that package
and i noticed that 'libnotify' is a development
library. Therefore, i am curious that, do i only need 'libnotify' to
build FF? or do i need it to run FF as well?

that is really what i do not understand. Let's say i finish building
FF 3.6b4, and use it on another machine
without libnotify, would FF still run?

thanks,

Toan

[Benjamin Smedberg]

On 12/3/09 2:05 PM, Toan Pham wrote:

> is there a difference (or such a thing) between a build dependency and
> a package runtime dependency?

Yes. There are cases where we build against a dependency (dbus and gnomevfs
come to mind immediately) but do so with a shared library which provides
optional functionality. If gnomevfs or dbus is not present on the end
system, only that shared library will fail to load the product will continue
to function.

> that is really what i do not understand. Let's say i finish building
> FF 3.6b4, and use it on another machine
> without libnotify, would FF still run?

I don't know the specific answer about libnotify and how we use it.

---BDS