[MacPorts] #17540: poppler conflicts with xpdf

[MacPorts]

#17540: poppler conflicts with xpdf
----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------
 Reporter:  gale@…          |       Owner:  ricci@…           
     Type:  defect          |      Status:  new               
 Priority:  Normal          |   Milestone:  Port Bugs         
Component:  ports           |     Version:  1.6.0             
 Keywords:  conflict        |        Port:  poppler xpdf      
----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------

Comment(by jeremyhu@…):

 Replying to [comment:8 gale@…]:
 > Replying to [comment:7 jeremyhu@…]:
 > > How is it "dangerous",
 >
 > Because it tricks people into running a different
 > executable than they think they are running.

 It doesn't "trick" anyone.  It just makes MacPorts use poppler for the pdf
 utils and xpdf just installs xpdf.  It runs the app people think they run.
 It's not like I replaced /bin/cp with /bin/mv or something...

 > > and how is it a "hack" ?
 >
 > Wouldn't you agree that a package that silently
 > deletes files belonging to a different package and
 > clobbers them with its own is a hack?
 > Especially if some of those files are executables?

 As mentioned, it's not "silently deleting" files.  It's just making the
 xpdf package no longer provide the pdf utils.  They're now provided by
 poppler instead (as was the case with the existing poppler variant).

 > > A variant is in place in xpdf to "make it work".
 >
 > Not for me, I also would need a variant in poppler to be able to use
 this hack.

 Yeah, well you're the exception.  That's who variants are for.  The
 default variant set should "just work".  It doesn't now.  My solution
 fixes that.  If you want to use the pdf utils provided by xpdf and not
 have poppler on your system, you can do that with a variant.

 > > The utilities ARE binary compatible.
 >
 > Could be at this moment. But even if so, that could change without
 warning at any time.

 But for now they are, and if they ever aren't, we can deal with it at that
 point.

 > Yes, assuming that we also add a +with_xpdf variant to poppler, that
 would satisfy my personal needs currently. But it would still be a
 dangerous hack. Unless there is some way to specify a conflict that is
 conditional on variants across two different packages,
 > the only way to do this is to separate out the utilities from the X app
 for xpdf, and from the library for poppler.
 >
 > But really, why not do that, like the others are doing? It is easy to
 build the utilities separately (at least for xpdf, I assume also for
 poppler).
 > And you gain the additional advantage of vastly reduced dependencies.

 Fine.  I'll just leave it "broken" for ricci to fix.  This isn't my mess.

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://trac.macports.org/ticket/17540#comment:9>
MacPorts <http://www.macports.org/>
Ports system for Mac OS