[Mesa-dev] libxml2 (python) dependency

[Tilman Sauerbeck]

Ian Romanick [2011-04-18 17:12]:
> On 04/18/2011 04:48 PM, tom fogal wrote:
> > 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? :)
> 
> We haven't used plain-text for years.  What has changed is that the
> generated files are no longer tracked in source control.  They are
> generated at compile time because anything else is just nuts. :)  I know

What about generating them at 'make dist' time, too...?
That way the Python dependency would only hit developers, but not
people building from proper release tarballs.

Regards,
Tilman

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