Python is only needed by libglade-convert, which is a tool for upgrading old .glade files. I suggest splitting this dependency into a "tools" USE-flag or similar.
It is not clear what you want exactly. pygtk requires libglade to provide python libglade module, but this is deprecated by usage of gobject-introspection. gtk+:2 provides tools to convert glade files to gtk-builder files but this tool should not be needed as soon as upstream developers finish their migration work. In the meantime, these application must still rely on gtk+:2 providing this tool.
> pygtk requires libglade to provide python libglade module I don't see any libglade Python module on my system: # find /usr/lib/python2.7 -name '*glade*' # qlist -e libglade | grep py # > gtk+:2 provides tools to convert glade files to gtk-builder files but this tool should not be needed as soon as upstream developers finish their migration work. In the meantime, these application must still rely on gtk+:2 providing this tool. Do applications rely on libglade-convert at build-time, or only the upstream developers? If only the developers need it, then it can be split into a default-on "tools" flag, for instance. From http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/general/libglade.html: libglade-convert is used to convert old Glade interface files to Glade-2.0 standards.
Ok so this is another tool. I guess it can be made optional then. It is most likely unneeded by now.
A similar issue was just handled in gtk+:2: bug #402905.
Ping?
+*libglade-2.6.4-r2 (17 Jun 2014) + + 17 Jun 2014; Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> +libglade-2.6.4-r2.ebuild, + metadata.xml: + Enable multilib support. Remove redundant shebang fixing, bug #512362. Make + libglade-convert optional, bug #398955. Remove unnecessary gtk-doc dependency + since the docs are pre-built.
gnome-base/libglade-2.6.4-r2 now contains: REQUIRED_USE="${PYTHON_REQUIRED_USE}" RDEPEND="... tools? ( ${PYTHON_DEPS} )" pkg_setup() { use tools && python-single-r1_pkg_setup } You probably forgot to include "tools?" conditional in REQUIRED_USE.
You are correct, thanks. + 18 Jun 2014; Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> libglade-2.6.4-r2.ebuild: + Wrap REQUIRED_USE in tools? as well.