externalized libraries - rationale for not optional

[Jeff Mitchell]

Rex Dieter wrote:
> Caleb Cushing wrote:
> 
>> On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 8:10 PM, Seb Ruiz <ruiz at kde.org> wrote:
> 
>>> The bottom line is that you need a good justification to make
>>> something optional.
>> I disagree... you need a good reason to make it not optional.
> 
> These items were never optional.  Making these items external doesn't change 
> that.  Introducing such flexibility (and complexity) requires thought, 
> discussion, and work/effort to implement.  None of that has happened (yet).  
> Arguing by fiat (I want it, make it so), isn't a constructive exercise.

Caleb,

Taglib-Extras was not split out to be optional, it was split out so that
other projects could use it if they so wished -- it doesn't do anyone
else any good by sitting inside Amarok.  It was done in the spirit of
making functionality available to other projects.

Now, could you run Amarok without it?  Yes, you could, but you'll
cripple Amarok's ability to handle many file formats that we've
supported for four years.  This is why we're treating it as a required
dependency and telling the packagers as such, and why the CMakeLists.txt
file has it as a required dep.  If you didn't have a problem with the
libraries inside Amarok for the last four years, you really shouldn't be
complaining about it now.

If you wish to build Amarok without it, I suggest you make your own
package.  Gentoo is in a unique position due to its USE flags, but if
the packager makes it toggleable, I would hope that the packager would
handle it sanely, and warn the user if they try to disable the
dependency that it will break many common formats.

--Jeff

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