I think this is one of the two basic scenarios that should be working so cloning this bug to RHEL-5. +++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #1024070 +++ The yum-builddep man page says: The source RPM for the specified package must be available in a Yum repository (which will be automatically enabled, if it is disabled) But adding an enabled source yum repository doesn't make yum-builddep function in RHEL 7. Editing the repo file to have enabled=0 instead of enabled=1 does make it work, though. Toggling it back to 1 again, makes it fail again. It's apparently only looking at disabled repositories.
This request was evaluated by Red Hat Product Management for inclusion in the current release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Because the affected component is not scheduled to be updated in the current release, Red Hat is unable to address this request at this time. Red Hat invites you to ask your support representative to propose this request, if appropriate, in the next release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.