Qt 5 buildability

[Milian Wolff]

On Friday 09 January 2015 22:41:15 Ben Cooksley wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 10:32 PM, Jan Kundrát <jkt at kde.org> wrote:
> > On Thursday, 8 January 2015 22:59:53 CEST, Ben Cooksley wrote:
> >> QtWebEngine won't build unless you have nss-devel installed (which it
> >> complains about) but it also won't build unless libcap-devel is
> >> installed (which it doesn't complain about - you only find out when
> >> the compiler bails out on you).
> > 
> > It's "documented" at their wiki page [1]. I agree that configure checking
> > these deps is an obviously good thing and that nobody reads wiki pages.
> 
> Yep :)
> 
> 1) A failure for QtWebEngine to find what it needs should just be
> gracefully ignored, not result in a fatal build failure (unless it was
> explicitly requested)
> 2) Having a dependency which no part of your configuration system
> knows about is extremely bad.
> 
> >> The real big issue here though is none of this is integrated with
> >> ./configure, and the failure in QtWebEngine is fatal. Can someone
> >> please raise this with the Qt developers and get them to fix their
> >> build system please?
> > 
> > Nobody but you have full knowledge of the build environment that you use.
> > Even if I forwarded your report, the Qt developers are likely to ask
> > further questions which only you can answer. That's why it's important to
> > eliminate as many middlemens from the bug reporting process as possible,
> > IMHO.
> > 
> > You should file a bug at their issue tracker.
> 
> The Qt project has been totally unreceptive to prior requests i've made.
> Hence why i'd prefer this go through an intermediary - I can only
> guess as to why I am ignored.

I've sent a link to this discussion and the build error to the Qt WebEngine 
people. You can reach them easily (during working hours) in the #qtwebengine 
channel on freenode IRC. They are definitely receptive to your input. And, 
FWIW, Simon and Allan are both still very close to the KDE project. Simon e.g. 
already created https://codereview.qt-project.org/#/c/103225/ based on your 
report. http://qt-project.org/wiki/QtWebEngineHowToTry lists all dependencies, 
and they have an open bug report about improving the build system as well.

So, tl;dr; they will improve this. And I hope you are not burnt by your past 
experiences with $whomever in the Qt eco system. It's a versatile bunch, and 
most of them are very open to suggestions from the outside and will try to 
help anyone, and KDE in particular, as fast as possible.

Bye

-- 
Milian Wolff
mail at milianw.de
http://milianw.de