Re: pkg-config macro patch

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

Tomasz Kłoczko <kloczek rudy mif pg gda pl> writes:

> On 2 Feb 2001, Havoc Pennington wrote:
> 
> > 
> > Tomasz Kłoczko <kloczek rudy mif pg gda pl> writes: 
> > > And I have patch (prepared few days ago) which allow compile pkg-config
> > > with system glib and popt. Both ptches probably can allow complet
> > > pkg-config in useable form :)
> > 
> > Why was that needed?
> 
> Incorrect question. Correct is: why pkg-config must have own copy popt and
> glib files and why it can't use system installed libraries ? and both
> patches is correct answer for this qustion :)
> 
> Very similar qustion can be given for example for ORBit ("ansver" is on
> http://cvs.pld.org.pl/SOURCES/ORBit-use_system_popt.patch).
> Also gnome-libs have own copy popt files.

The answer for pkg-config, is that pkg-config is meant to be a tool
for building packages. And a tool for building packages that we
want to be used for everybody.

If I have a little time, I'd like to try to convince XFree86, freetype,
etc to ship pkg-config files, and so forth.

So, it shouldn't have a bunch of external dependencies.

I don't think building either against the system libraries or the
included libraries is that great of an idea either - it makes QA 
hard, and the pkg-config statically linked against the included
packages is only 80k.

Regards,
                                        Owen

[
  I agree, by the way, that having gnome-libs / orbit have their
  own copy of popt has turned out to be a mistake.

  But I don't see this as being comparable. pkg-config is a self-contained,
  statically linked binary. 
]