Re: some x11 stuff in pkgsrc is hopelessly broken for slightly older systems

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

On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 11:20:36AM -0700, Greg A. Woods wrote:
> Guys, the point is that pkgsrc supports XAW_TYPE=3d and X11_TYPE=native.

Limited support in both cases. For NetBSD 5, we have been advising to
use X11_TYPE=modular for a long time for example. 

> Those features have both worked fine for a very long time, well over a
> decade in the case of XAW_TYPE, and only failing sometime last summer
> (i.e. after XFree86 was nuked) or more recently.

XFree86 was nuked from pkgsrc a long time ago as well. Around 9 years I
think. On the protocol level, a decent XFree86 server should work for
most things. It has the damage, render and a couple of other high-level
extensions that most software from the decade requires. From the library
perspective, many toolkits moved to XCB entirely. Asking us to patch
things for pre-XCB Xlib is not going to find you much support and
upstream will typically just laught a bit and then ignore you. We are
aware to a degree of the deterioration for older systems and
X11_TYPE=native. But frankly, the only solution that is even remotely
maintainable is to just accept the situation and move to
X11_TYPE=modular. While it might not be necessary for the more mature
software, it is a fight against wind mills.

Joerg