Making Packager-Friendly Software, Part 2 (O'ReillyNet)

Making Packager-Friendly Software, Part 2 (O'ReillyNet)

The article is right, this is a known bug in pkgconfig.
See http://www.debconf.org/debconf4/talks/dependency-hell/ind...

> If your library is linked with libssl, any program linked with your library is lined with libssl as well. This is a dependency. No matter how hard you try to hide it, it still is.

Not really. The program might only depend on some entry points in the vfs library. Whether the entry points call entry points in libssl or libgnutls is not its business.

This is only an indirect dependency. Assuming the vfs library depend on libssl, there is no need to mention it, and it might be downright harmful.