Convince upstream packages to use pkg-config

[Ericson2314]

I don't think there is a good technical solution to #51176, namely packages that ship configuration executables or scripts. But, we could try to convince upstream packages to use pkg-config on a large scale. Maybe we can this into some sort of game or something, or a multi-distro project?

• Kerberos
  • Old attempt http://kerberos.996246.n3.nabble.com/Installing-pkg-config-files-for-krb5-td26880.html
  • applied krb5/krb5@c5e826e
  • Downstream usage:
    • openssh: Support finding Kerberos via pkg-config openssh/openssh-portable#219

Please edit this!

[Ericson2314]

@roberth's recent work can help with this.

[roberth]

@roberth's recent work

I've started a json file, package set and test set in order to track pkg-config modules in Nixpkgs. It can be used by expression-generating tools to automatically find dependencies.

• defaultPkgConfigPackages: init #212282

It's only a start. We could improve it with automation

• Fill pkg-configPackages using a script #212290

From what I've heard, repology is interested in reusing our pkg-config metadata to enrich their package database. This cross-referencing will make pkg-config more useful in the context of other packaging systems as well.

• Tracking pkg-config info repology/repology-updater#1309

I was only able to spend a limited amount of time on this, so I invite anyone to help the pkg-config effort.