[Development] forcing libxkbcommon to be present in the system makes newer Qt unusable on older linux distros

[Gatis Paeglis]

> library doesn't provide another way to build itself.

libxkbcommon changelog for 0.7.2 https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/wayland-devel/2017-August/034721.html

"Added a Meson build system as an alternative to existing autotools build system. The intent is to remove the autotools build in one of the next releases. Please try to convert to it and report any problems."

libxkbcommon changelog for 0.8.3 https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/wayland-devel/2019-February/039970.html:

"Build note: We've had a report that the autotools build doesn't work with


the new version of Bison, 3.3. If this happens to you, please switch to
using meson. The autotools build will be removed in libxkbcommon 0.9.0."


Note that 0.9.0 does not exist, so even the current master branch still can be built with auto tools.


> Unless I misunderstand something this change hits older linuxes real hard.

Current minimal required version by Qt is 0.5.0 and only really old distros do not have it. And to quote the commit message that removed the library from bundled sources:

"This library is present on all supported platforms."




________________________________
From: Development <development-bounces at qt-project.org> on behalf of NIkolai Marchenko <enmarantispam at gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 5, 2019 3:36 PM
To: Qt development mailing list
Subject: [Development] forcing libxkbcommon to be present in the system makes newer Qt unusable on older linux distros


 - [QTBUG-65503] Removed xkbcommon from bundled sources. This library is
   present on all supported platforms. The minimal required version now is
   0.5.0.


The change above makes updating Qt a gargantuan task for Centos 6 at least.

Building xkbcommon there requires meson (which centos 6 doesn't have)

and python 3.5 (same). And the library doesn't provide another way to build itself.


Unless I misunderstand something this change hits older linuxes real hard.

Is it really necessary?
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