configure.ac -- checking for fink

[David Fang]

>>  	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?

Hi,
 	Either remove the hard-coded check for fink, or automatically take 
$prefix and append the include/ lib/ to CPPFLAGS and LDFLAGS.  The latter 
would cover the cases where the user desires to install in the same prefix 
used by [favorite package manager], whatever it may be.  It's a tradeoff 
between flexibility and convenience.

>> 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.

The other option is to have the user explicitly pass CPPFLAGS or LDFLAGS 
at configure-time, for a blanket -I/prefix/include, -L/prefix/lib.  This 
is the general practice I follow to quickly build something against a 
particular root, when targeting the installation to a different prefix.

In the end, whatever you decide won't really matter, as the role of a 
package description / port file (for fink or what have you) is to "just 
make it build already".  :)

> 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.

I understand the motivation for the shortcut check.
But I also wanted to point out that people who happen to use fink (in /sw) 
and say, macports, might be surprised at to find building against /sw even 
after options for other paths have been specified.

In any case, it's no big deal.  Pidgin is now in fink for those 
interested.  I'll try to keep up with the updates.

... and Pidgin/Finch kick a$$, thanks for continuing work on it.

David Fang
Computer Systems Laboratory
Electrical & Computer Engineering
Cornell University
http://www.csl.cornell.edu/~fang/
 	-- (2400 baud? Netscape 3.0?? lynx??? No problem!)