[webkit-gtk] DLL Hell building Linux distro independent WebKit

[Andrew Wood]

Im trying to build WebKitGTK+ such that I can always use the latest 
version on just about any Linux distro, similar to how the binary 
version of Firefox that Mozilla produce seems to run flawlessly on any 
Linux distro regardless of what libs that distro has. Presumably they do 
this by bundling everything it needs (libraries) to make it self contained?


Ive tried to do this with WebKit but found the problem is library 
versions depeneded on by other libraries, it just becomes a minefield 
and after several weeks of messing around trying to get it to work I 
think this shared library problem is one of the biggest drawbacks to the 
Linux world - i.e many distros, many shared libs, some present, some 
not, some new, some older.

It seems that its impossible to build a modern version of WebKitGTK+ on 
solid stable distos like RHEL/CentOS, Debian stable etc because WebKit 
insists on a much newer version of certain libs than the ones on those 
distros, and as I say trying to provide a local copy of each one seems 
impossible...

Surely this must be possible though? Surely my dream of building a 
WebKit app that will just work on any distro like firefox does isnt that 
far fetched?

Any suggestions?

Thanks
andrew