Use of pkg-config

[Werner Koch]

On Tue, 13 May 2014 14:55, richard.purdie at linuxfoundation.org said:
> I notice this has been mentioned back in 2012 but I'd like to ask again
> whether it would be possible to consider adding pkgconfig support to
> libgpg-error and friends?

No.

pkg-config is mess because it is not based on standard Unix tools but
introduces extra dependencies.  The idea behind ./configure is to be
able to run the build process on an arbitrary Unix box without extra
dependencies. pkg-config introduces such extra dependencies because of
itself and - even worse - because it depends on glib.

Yes, I am talking about generic Unix systems.  There are still other
systems in active use than Linux, Windows, and MacOS.  Those systems
don't come with pkg-config or glib installed as standard tools.  They
don't come with GNU make but with a standard make.  This is why we need
most of the configure stuff.

pkg-config makes sense for projects like GNOME and KDE where it is part
of their framework.

> One comment in the previous discussion was "Package using pkgconfig
> require a wrapper to fix the paths.  Checkout the Gpg4win meta installer
> for details.". 

Agreed, that is not a problem anymore.  The new 2.1 Windows build code
uses pkg-config without a wrapper for building GPA (GTK+ based GUI).


Salam-Shalom,

   Werner

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