Enrico Weigelt wrote: > * Yavor Doganov <ya...@gnu.org> schrieb: > > > Switching dependencies which silently enables/disables features is > > > a generally bad approach. > > > > Well, in my very humble experience, an optional dependency is there > > precisely to provide an optional feature. > > No, opposite direction: features are functional requirements, whose > implementations just happens to have some dependencies. For example, > an feature could be supporting compressed files, implemented using > zlib or libbz2.
That's exactly where --with-zlib and --with-libbz2 should be used (according to the practice recommended by Autoconf, at least). --enable-compression could by default check for zlib and libbz2, and enable either or both if found. If neither is found and --enable-compression was manually specified by the installer, the configure script should fail with a proper error message. That's what users generally expect, since the recommendation has been there for ages. > > > And still many people need them. > > > > I seriously doubt that. > > You doubt the whole embedded/smalldev development going all around > the world ? I admit I'm not familiar with this topic ("embedded/smalldev development"). If static libraries are really needed there, and this is an area Debian strives to support, I guess the stance about static libs should be widely discussed. > > > > I strongly disagree with requiring pkg-config. > > > > > > Well, actually, I need it, eg. for clean sysroot'ed crosscompiling. > > > > But pkg-config is notoriously bad when cross-compiling... > > No, it's not. Actually, it's quite fine. Just give it the right > environment variables, so it takes everything from sysroot. That's what I'm talking about. You don't need to play with PKG* variables if pkg-config macros are *not* used. > And you suppose all the individual distro maintainers to manually > tweak each package for each target ? Of course not. A proper usage of the GNU Build System does not require pkg-config, and certainly does not require manual tweaks. > It's easier to control those things via a generic interface like > pkg-config (note: I'm talking about the _interface_, not just the > binary /usr/bin/pkg-config !) This interface contradicts the Autoconf philosophy (i.e., perform realistic feature tests, not merely version comparisons), which is why some developers do not like and/or trust its approach. Others do, which is also fine. I don't see why Debian should insist on upstreams to be in the former or the latter group. Really. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/874odkdxcy.gnus_not_unix!%ya...@gnu.org