configure.ac -- checking for fink

[Ethan Blanton]

David Fang spake unto us the following wisdom:
>  	The following excerpt of configure.ac, checking for a hard-coded 
> default path for fink is not recommended, and should be removed.

What do you recommend, instead?

> Fink does not force users to use the default path, so checking for it 
> would be a fallacy.  People who use multiple package managers or local 
> trees in addition to fink might accidentally compile against unintended 
> prefix/trees, so it would be best to leave it out.  We're patching it out 
> of the fink package, so there is less reason to keep it around.

I don't think 'fallacy' is what you mean, here.  We don't actually
care if fink is in /sw, just that there might be crap in /sw that the
user might need to build.  Since it just so happens that the three
people who still install fink put it in /sw ... this seems reasonable
to keep, to me.

We added this because we kept getting questions about how to get
Pidgin to build on OSX with fink.  Probably the facts that 1) fink is
far less popular than it was, and 2) people on OSX generally use Adium
now mean that we can just remove this, I guess.  Still, a
pronouncement of "We don't force /sw any more" from the fink people
doesn't seem to remove the praticality of this check.

Ethan

-- 
The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws [that have no remedy
for evils].  They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor
determined to commit crimes.
		-- Cesare Beccaria, "On Crimes and Punishments", 1764
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