diff --git a/libguestfs.spec b/libguestfs.spec
index e952afd..0ae7247 100644
--- a/libguestfs.spec
+++ b/libguestfs.spec
@@ -48,7 +48,11 @@ BuildRequires:  pkg-config
 BuildRequires:  qemu
 BuildRequires:  readline-devel
 BuildRequires:  xz
-BuildRequires:  perl(Pod::Simple::XHTML)
+%if %suse_version < 1210
+# perl as included in openSuSE 11.4 has this, but an older version without html_charset
+# Without the version the requires is ignored for some reason
+BuildRequires:  perl(Pod::Simple::XHTML) = 3.23
+%endif
 #
 %if %{with_perl}
 BuildRequires:  perl