[Mesa-dev] libxml2 (python) dependency

[tom fogal]

Hey all,

We recently became more aware of a dependency on python's libxml2 for 
building Mesa.  We're not as proactive as we should be, but tend to 
upgrade Mesa every few releases; I think this was a jump from 7.8 to 7.10.

Anyway, libxml2 is a bit arduous for us because it's not installed by 
default on Linux or Mac.  On Linux, it's easy to grab via a package 
manager, but still does not exist by default on some distros.  In 
general, non-standard dependencies are difficult because they make our 
(already very large) software stack more complex.

Is the package truly needed?  I think it's used to parse spec files and 
autogenerate trampolines or callbacks or something like that.  Didn't we 
used to have plain text files for that?  Any reason we can't go back to 
something simpler?  Does code speak loud than words, here? :)

-tom