I haven't followed this thread in full detail, but it concerned me
that getting this right requires observing the output of configure.

This strikes me as error-prone..

How about doing the following packaging check so that people who are
lulled to sleep by configure output can know when they missed a dependancy:
	
 - at some point in the packaging phase, run "ldd" on the generated
executables to find the set of shared libraries "imported" by the package.
 - subtract from this the set of shared libraries exported by the
transitive closure of the package's dependancies.
 - if the result is non-empty, suggest dependancies to add and/or
error out..

					- Bill