Re: USE flag "pdfimport" for binary package "app-office/libreoffice"?

Eli,

On Monday, 2026-05-18 21:31:29 -0400, you wrote:

> ...
> >> are there any plans for providing package "app-office/libreoffice" with
> >> USE flag "pdfimport" on the binhost?

> Note it is not a default USE.

Right.  Correct me, if I'm wrong, but rumor has it that this is to blame
on "app-text/poppler"  producing new versions very fast,  which then re-
quire a rebuild  of "app-office/libreoffice".   So building "app-office/
libreoffice"  without USE flag "pdfimport"  saves plenty of rebuilds ei-
ther on the binhost or locally.

On the other hand,  the ability to open  and manipulate PDF files is not
that exotic a requirement, is it?  At least some, if not most binary-on-
ly Linux distributions  which issue new releases only every now and then
do provide "libreoffice" packages which allow manipulation of PDF files.

And then: checking the runtime dependencies of  "app-office/libreoffice"
returns among others

   >=app-text/poppler-22.06:0/158=[cxx]

a version I installed  at 2022-08-03,  that is,  almost four years back.
So obviously "app-office/libreoffice" doesn't depend  on the most recent
"poppler" version.  After using Gentoo for seven years now I'm still far
from being a Gentoo guru, but Gentoo provides "slots" allowing different
versions of some package being installed simultaneously.  So couldn't we
have a "slower" slot of "app-text/poppler" where only those versions are
provided which fix gross errors and security breaches  and use this slot
for both,  building "app-office/libreoffice" on the binhost  and running
it locally?

Just a thought ...

Sincerely,
  Rainer