Gentoo Fun

[Eric Polino]

On 7/20/07, Kevin M Stange <kevin at simguy.net> wrote:
> Ethan Blanton wrote:
> > Walter A. Boring IV spake unto us the following wisdom:
> >> Etan Reisner wrote:
> >>> You need to point out to them that turning the protocols on by default
> >>> does not magically make pidgin require extra libraries or fail to build
> >>> without them. Turning protocols like zephyr, silc, bonjour, and gadu-gadu
> >>> on simply makes pidgin *check for* the appropriate libraries and *if they
> >>> are found at configure time* build the protocols correctly, if they are
> >>> not found pidgin continues building perfectly normally without them and
> >>> just leaves those protocols off. So if gentoo has the abilty to 'suggest'
> >>> dependencies the extra libraries should be suggested, if however gentoo
> >>> does not support suggestions then forcing the extra libraries is not the
> >>> right answer and it can be left up to people to correctly install the
> >>> dependencies needed for the 'special' protocols.
> >> -- the problem with this is that gentoo users expect that when a
> >> feature is turned on via a USE var when building a package that any
> >> dependencies will automatically get built prior.  So, as you say
> >> enabling those protocols for the build only checks, but that's not
> >> what gentoo users expect from an ebuild.  when I emerge -vp package It
> >> shows the enabled USE vars for the package and always resolves to
> >> build dependencies prior to building the package.  It would be a 'bug'
> >> for an ebuild package to show the enabled protocols and not build the
> >> dependencies prior and have them enabled.
> >
> > I have no idea whether these particular protocols even *have* USE
> > variables -- we don't get people coming in asking about SILC or
> > Gadu-Gadu.  What we *do* get is people asking about a common (if
> > terrible) protocol with no unusual external dependencies, MSN.  The
> > USE flags currently on the Pidgin package seem to be more or less
> > completely arbitrary, from upstream's point of view.  (It is perfectly
> > possible that Bonjour et al. also have USE flags, and we just don't
> > hear about it.)
> >
>
> Actually, MSN depends upon Pidgin's SSL plugin and turning on the MSN
> USE flag effectively turns on another USE flag (SSL) and pulls in GNUTLS
> or NSS.
>
> It appears the ebuild has only USE flags for those PRPLs that pull in
> dependencies of any kind explicitly or implicitly, but that these are
> all off by default right now.
>
> By default, the ebuild includes:
>
> DYNAMIC_PRPLS="irc,jabber,oscar,yahoo,zephyr,simple"

The updated ebuild for 2.0.2, still testing, includes msn.  I
mentioned some of this in IRC, but a maintainer came in the thread and
said that these are the ones that will be default and that's the end
of that.  Kinda ticked me off, considering that many came in the
thread saying they think it would be simpler to just enable them and
get on with life.  Strangely, he said the same a while back.  Who
knows!  In any case, this is what's happening, and until we get a more
cooperative maintainer, I don't think we'll get anywhere but
frustrated.

Eric

> Kevin
>
>
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