Re: pkg/21040 (libintl management in packages)

[Joerg Sonnenberger <joerg%britannica.bec.de@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR pkg/21040; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Joerg Sonnenberger <joerg%britannica.bec.de@localhost>
To: gnats-bugs%NetBSD.org@localhost
Cc: 
Subject: Re: pkg/21040 (libintl management in packages)
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2006 21:38:48 +0200

 On Mon, Oct 02, 2006 at 07:25:02PM +0000, Quentin Garnier wrote:
 >  > Feedback expired. Also (with the gettext maintainer head)
 >  > consider this bug as fixed by proper use of PREFER_PKGSRC.
 >  
 >  This is BS.  The PR is about packages having requirements that
 >  are met differently by the system.  The user, and therefore
 >  PREFER_PKGSRC, is not involve.  Sure, PREFER_PKGSRC would fix it, but
 >  how can the user know the problem exists beforehand?
 
 The interface of system gettext and pkgsrc gettext is the same, so this
 is about choosing one implementation over the other. Mixing them doesn't
 work and the mechanism for choosing one of the other in pkgsrc is *tata*
 PREFER_PKGSRC.
 
 The reason why that doesn't work is simply that the set of symbols
 providing by pkgsrc gettext is prefixed with libintl, the native version
 doesn't have prefixes.
 
 There are other limitations like missing support for pluralisation in
 older NetBSD releases and those are worked around by pkgsrc. It is the
 responsibility of the user to decide what he needs (if he hits the few
 issues) and whether it is worth the pain.
 
 Joerg