[PATCH] Making Soprano optional (again) in kdelibs

[Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto]

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On Sunday 27 December 2009 13:06:18 Allen Winter wrote:

> On Sunday 27 December 2009 8:34:23 am Maciej Mrozowski wrote:
>> Actually one of those people screaming would be me :)
>> From my perspective it's much more convenient to have Nepomuk libs
(and thus soprano and SDO dependencies) optional for 4.4 as well.
>> Besides the only tool in kdepim that needs Nepomuk libs to build is
mentioned akonadiconsole which is more or less developer tool and not
user application and at least in current state - akonadi can live
without Nepomuk QueryServer.
>> Also, one would argue but kdepim used to be quite standalone product
(not part of KDE4 Workspace, actively maintained also for KDE 3.5), so
imho there's no need to force some dependency for kdelibs only because
it's mandatory in kdepim.
>> While keeping if (NEPOMUK_FOUND) and alike CMake code is considerable
maintenance cost - this cost has already been born so there's nothing
else to do for 4.4 (and dropping this code to simplify CMake files
relying on the fact that Nepomuk libs being mandatory would cause
another maintenance cost).
>> So I'm for
> From a kdepim point-of-view, Nepomuk must be a hard dependency as
Kontact will have big problems without it.
>
> So either Nepomuk is a hard dependency for kdelibs or for kdepim.
>
> Might as well keep it a hard dependency for kdelibs.
>
> -Allen, KDEPIM module coordinator

As one of the packagers for Gentoo, I'm also one of those "screaming"
about this. I'm getting increasingly tired of all the forced
dependencies that you keep "shoving down users throats". (you = KDE and
not Allen)
I understand that as the KDEPIM module coordinator you're concerned with
Kontact dependencies, but please don't forget that a user that only
wants to use amarok or k3b isn't concerned and won't be pleased to have
all the "Semantic Desktop heavyweight deps" forced on his system just
because the KDE team keeps assuming users want *all* of KDE.
We've talked to Alexander Neundorf in FOSDEM'09 about splitting the KDE
modules as we provide individual apps and don't force complete modules
to users and we do it from source and not from binary packages.
Unfortunately the idea of changing the build system to split KDE modules
and ensure propper dependencies for each app hasn't gone anywhere as it
seems most of the KDE developers don't like, don't understand or won't
help implementing it. We'll have to live with it, but please stop moving
individual apps or modules dependencies to kdelibs just because it makes
the build system "simpler". Every time you do that, you're forcing one
more dependency on each and every user of KDE. As KDE is by no means a
"light DE", all you may achieve doing is turning people away - in
particular those that care only about a few apps like amarok or k3b.

- -- 
Regards,

Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
Gentoo- forums / Userrel / Devrel / KDE / Elections
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