Re: Moving expat and a few other libraries to the base system

[Matthias Drochner <M.Drochner%fz-juelich.de@localhost>]

mrg%eterna.com.au@localhost said:
> this discussion was started because pkgsrc handles the case of a
> system without X11 installed but needing these libraries was poor.

pkgsrc is already fragmented: one can't run binary pkgs
built against native-x11 with modular-x11 and vice versa.
While it sounds harsh -- technically the best solution imho
is to state that pkgsrc binaries built against native-x11
need a system with native-x11 to run. Otherwise we'll never
be able to draw the line between packages tied to X11
or guis or not.

Before modular-x11, we often had problems in pkgsrc with newer
packages requiring a newer version of a library (typically
fontconfig or freetype) which came with native-xf86. Then
both version were installed, and eventually a pkg linked
against both versions, leading to nasty problems.
We should avoid that situation; I actually don't have a good
idea how, but as long as these pkgs are in native-xorg
I can resort to modular-xorg, but if they are in base I'm
completely SOL.
expat has been quite stable in the last years so it would't
be that dangerous but it would be a bad precedent at least.
fontconfig and freetype get updates regularily, I'd expect
problems here.
(freetype would be bad anyway: due to patent problems we'd
likely be forced to ship a library with subpixel etc stuff
disabled, but users would want it and would be forced to
install a pkgsrc version.)

best regards
Matthias



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