glibc since 2.1 (December 1997) provides iconv() conversion functions.
(And has been improved since then.)

glibc also provides iconv(1) tool.

I don't know which other libc's provide good iconv() and iconv
tool. But most (all?) Linux distributions don't ship libiconv libraries.

And as far as I can tell the libcharset library is not needed with glibc.

Even with USE_GNU_ICONV set, the package is probably not needed on a glibc
system. Maybe USE_GNU_ICONV is deprecated? I think only editors/abiword,
editors/abiword1 and converters/wv2 use it.

Can anyone using Linux with pkgsrc please try removing your libiconv
package and use the native glibc support instead?

Please use this patch to make sure:

Index: converters/libiconv/Makefile
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/pkgsrc/converters/libiconv/Makefile,v
retrieving revision 1.24
diff -b -u -r1.24 Makefile
--- converters/libiconv/Makefile	2 Mar 2004 05:01:38 -0000	1.24
+++ converters/libiconv/Makefile	20 Mar 2004 04:29:10 -0000
@@ -10,6 +10,12 @@
 HOMEPAGE=		http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/
 COMMENT=		Character set conversion library

+.include "../../mk/bsd.prefs.mk"
+.if ${OPSYS} == "Linux"
+# don't use PKG_SKIP_REASON yet so we can make sure the buildlinking is correct
+PKG_FAIL_REASON+=	"${PKGNAME} is not needed for Linux; it is included in GNU libc."
+.endif
+
 PKG_INSTALLATION_TYPES=	overwrite pkgviews

 USE_BUILDLINK3=		YES



Thank you,

   Jeremy C. Reed
   http://www.reedmedia.net/