beryl-0.1.1-r1 ebuild has a check to make sure cairo is built with PDF support. Only reference I can find as to WHY is bug #152678, which refers to the beryl-settings ebuild. Wouldn't it make more sense for that ebuild to have the check, rather than a metabuild that doesn't actually do any work? CC'ing Joshua Jackson as his name is in the changelog entry that added the check.
The meta is there to grab all packages that you need to install beryl as a whole, much like kde-meta and the like. The error in the build is caused by the lack of cairo references in gtk+ which comes about in a entirely different way of nested issues. As beryl (the whole enchilada..as at this time doesn't work with any other decoration other then emerald) we need to check to see if you are running a version that can optionally be built without those(the first check), then proceeds to do the second if needed. This bug affects more then just one package thus maintaining the same exact patch in multiple locations, because it could change for one or the other (as beryl is under very heavy development) would be a pain in the arse. Basically the check is in the meta for a reason and if you go and install only part of beryl...you are going to have a broken environment anyways... Basically, I'm not going to hold your hand through the entire process if you choose to avoid installing a package that doesn't cause any difference in your system other then total_packages=$total_packages+1.
