diff --git a/pkgs/development/libraries/opencv/default.nix b/pkgs/development/libraries/opencv/default.nix
index e0b8dcca1af..4ce1787dbac 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/libraries/opencv/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/libraries/opencv/default.nix
@@ -20,10 +20,6 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
 
   enableParallelBuilding = true;
 
-  cmakeFlags = [
-    "-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release"
-  ];
-
   meta = {
     description = "Open Computer Vision Library with more than 500 algorithms";
     homepage = http://opencv.org/;