On Mon, 12 May 2014 20:48:16 +0200 Peter Stuge <pe...@stuge.se> wrote:
> Samuli Suominen wrote: > > Except having pkg-config is the only way to fix some of the build > > issues we are seeing today, like getting 'Libs.private: ' for > > static linking, there has been multiple bugs lately, > > I honestly don't think that it's Gentoo's place to fix those issues. > > Just error out. Make users complain to upstream when upstream has a > problem. Don't hide the problem and amass a huge support workload. "But it works fine on distro Y!" ... "Oh, you don't fix it; I go to distro Y, I don't want to wait for upstream to support Gentoo." But true, besides a temporary fix downstream it should go upstream; I just don't think that it is something which we want to force our users to do. It is more of an expectation that the maintainer should do this; if not, users that are interested can help out with that as well. > > and we are in middle of process of obsoleting every custom > > foo-config > > Again I don't think that's Gentoo's decision to make. It could > certainly be a user's decision, but complexity would explode. Yeah, I'm not sure how well that would work for java-config for instance; it helps a lot, I can't make myself a picture of a world without java-config. It would introduce regressions with no benefit. > > so having pkg-config files is an absolute requirement. > > You haven't provided a rationale, only a circular argument: > > "We're taking action which requires .pc so having .pc is a > requirement." "We made a highway for driving with requires a car so having a car is a requirement to drive on the highway." Now try driving an airplane on it. In other words; it is easy to use what it has been made for, it gets harder if you are trying to differ from the purpose of it. > My key point is that it isn't Gentoo's responsibility or duty to fix > problems introduced by upstreams, even if Gentoo developers are so > skilled that they would be able to. > > I think your time is better spent on things that are not broken. If we all did that, I wonder how much would still work; not as much as we have achieved now, so I like that we've made an "added value". > > > If upstream pkg A depends on $distro-specific foo of pkg B then > > > that will obviously not work in an environment only following > > > upstreams, and will require effort to untie gentoo pkg A from > > > $distro specifics. > > > > pkg-config by design works without .pc files if needed, > > so if this is the only problem with them, it's really no problem > > I think it is a problem, because Gentoo starts having an opinion. > > I don't like that. For me, Gentoo is all about letting me decide. +1 but that doesn't withhold that there are defaults here and there. > That means I must be exposed to broken upstreams, so that *I* can > decide how to deal with them. Yeah, you could switch to a distro where it all works, or keep running away from them; but isn't a fix instead what you really want, I think you can easily configure Gentoo to not apply any patches as all (disable src_prepare) but you get to keep the pieces given all the breakage. > Maybe introduce a USE flag for installing .pc:s in ${FILESDIR} ? We have recently decided to not use an USE flag for small files; so, I'm not sure if this proposal is much different from that decision. You can use INSTALL_MASK for this purpose I think. > > (Are we seriously discussing banning something useful as pkg-config > > files?! That's retarded. Must be some joke.) > > I don't think I said to ban them. I said that I want Gentoo to stay > close to upstream by default. I also said that maintainers shouldn't > be expected to untie upstream bugknots. > > Please do not call me retarded again. That might have been meant to be about the thread as a whole. -- With kind regards, Tom Wijsman (TomWij) Gentoo Developer E-mail address : tom...@gentoo.org GPG Public Key : 6D34E57D GPG Fingerprint : C165 AF18 AB4C 400B C3D2 ABF0 95B2 1FCD 6D34 E57D
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