[tlbuild] asymptote build

[Karl Berry]

    ld accepts files names as an alternative to library names, so 

Thanks for trying, but I'm afraid that kind of unportable solution
doesn't really help on the wide variety of systems asymptote runs on;
John couldn't apply it upstream.

In general, this is not a simple thing to do; for each library there has
to be an option to link it statically.  Unfortunately, the simple
-static (or the equivalent) by itself doesn't work because linking libc
statically causes problems.

There are yet more complications with C++.

    Would it be possible to create two builds, one with and one without OpenGL?

In theory, yes, and perhaps in the future we can do this.  If we make
more builds later, then they can be distributed via the normal (as of
last year) update mechanism.  It's not perfect, but it's something.

Right now, I have to focus on stabilizing all of TL for testing and
release.  I've already spent as much time personally on asymptote as all
other build issues combined.  It is a special case for all our builders,
since we can't integrate into the normal build system for TL, so it's
not a simple thing to just rebuild.  I sincerely hope that by next year,
things will be much smoother, but we can't do all that work now.

    it would be a pity not to allow it.

Like I said, I agree it is not ideal.  I hope you understand why it is
not merely a matter of deciding to "allow" it.  I'm perfectly happy to
ship OpenGL-enabled binaries, but we are all volunteers and there are
only so many hours in the day.

    distributions (like Ubuntu) package ancient versions like 1.43.

I surmise that your getting involved with the Debian and Fedora
maintainers of their respective asymptote packages would have a bigger
effect than anything we can do here.  They don't have the binary
distribution problems that we do, and should be able to easily integrate
OpenGL.  If they (and thus all their downstream distros) start shipping
current asymptote in their current release, that will benefit many
people.

Meanwhile, we will at least be shipping a fully-enabled Windows binary,
since John is building it :).  I'll see if I can build an asy for
TL's i386-linux in particular with OpenGL enabled. 

Best,
karl