On 12/05/14 20:47, Peter Stuge wrote: > Rich Freeman wrote: >>> Longterm, this makes it year after year more difficult to develop >>> software for "Linux". >> I'm with you here, but what is the solution? >> >> If we say we stick to upstream then we don't provide pkg-config files >> at all (in these cases). > I think this is a sane default.
Except having pkg-config is the only way to fix some of the build issues we are seeing today, like getting 'Libs.private: ' for static linking, there has been multiple bugs lately, and we are in middle of process of obsoleting every custom foo-config due to same reasons, so having pkg-config files is an absolute requirement. Some binary-only distros might get away without them, but we won't. > > >> Then when Debian does the other upstreams use them and then those >> packages break on Gentoo. > I like Gentoo to stay very close to upstream. > > If upstream pkg A depends on $distro-specific foo of pkg B then that > will obviously not work in an environment only following upstreams, > and will require effort to untie gentoo pkg A from $distro specifics. pkg-config by design works without .pc files if needed, by exporting FOO_LIBS and FOO_CFLAGS, so if this is the only problem with them, it's really no problem at all compared to the problems caused by lacking the pkg-config files (Are we seriously discussing banning something useful as pkg-config files?! That's retarded. Must be some joke.)
