RFE: Using external intl?

[Panu Matilainen]

On Tue, 2006-04-25 at 07:08 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I would like to propose to switch apt-rpm to using an external libintl.
> 
> This would remove the intl subdirectory from the source-tree and thereby
> would slim down the size of apt-rpm tarballs.
> 
> On the functional side, this would not have any impact on Linux users,
> because intl/ normally (i.e. unless explicitly requested) isn't used on
> Linux at all.
> 
> It would affect non-Linux systems, and would require users of such
> systems to either switch off nls/i18n or to install a separate libintl.
> 
> In case there should be consensus, I could provide the required patches.

My rather vague recollection about it is that the internal gettext was
introduced because apt required a newer version of gettext than was
available on some common distros, way way back then. 

Anybody know/remember whether gettext on, lets say RHEL 2.1, is new
enough for apt? If it is, I'd say it can go. If not, then lets keep it
for now (it's not as if it's exactly expensive to keep around) and
remove it along with support for those prehistoric rpm versions (which
is going to happen eventually)

	- Panu -