Comment 2 for bug 1926949

This used to happen with PHP too. I don't know how the Launchpad builders do it but it does work as we want there. The FTBFS happens with local sbuild defaults only and you have to override locally as you found. So not an issue for the archive unless you're seeing behaviour that contradicts my assumptions here?

With the PHP situation Debian buildds handled it fine too.

I think the Build-Depends line specified is entirely compliant with the spec and will work correctly except for sbuild's local defaults. Since prior cases haven't considered this to be a bug in packaging, I don't think this case is either, so I think this bug should be marked Invalid.

However, this doesn't preclude changing the packaging to make it more convenient for sbuild users, etc, in which case feel free to keep the bug open. Swapping it around as Utkarsh suggests might make sense anyway, since conventionally we use the first alternative to mean the preferred alternative (resolvers will default to earlier ones where possible, etc).