As far as I can tell, there is only a single python script in Gtk+ for which the dependency is present. Can you please add an USE flag so that one can install gtk+ (on a ROOT offset) without bringing Python in? Thank you!
It would require tracking down which versions of which packages use gtk-builder-convert at build time. Diego, you have a tinderbox, perhaps you could help with that ;)
Get me a masked ebuild with that USE flag, and next week I'll run the tinderbox to find what breaks with it disabled, deal? :)
(I mean p.masked)
A full tinderbox run turned would have been overkill; all build-time users of gtk-builder-convert could be found just by grepping ebuilds and contents of $WORKDIR after src_prepare, which is something I could do on my own machine. There turned out to be only three users in the tree - gnome-terminal, drwright, and klavaro. Since gtk-builder-convert is a self-contained script useful in its own right, it was more natural to simply split it off into a separate ebuild (dev-util/gtk-builder-convert) than to try make it a flag-controlled part of gtk+. gtk+-2.24.10-r1 is now python-free. > *gtk+-2.24.10-r1 (13 Feb 2012) > > 13 Feb 2012; Alexandre Rostovtsev <tetromino@gentoo.org> > gtk+-2.24.5-r1.ebuild, gtk+-2.24.8-r1.ebuild, gtk+-2.24.9-r1.ebuild, > gtk+-2.24.10.ebuild, +gtk+-2.24.10-r1.ebuild: > Split dev-util/gtk-builder-convert out of gtk+-2.24.10-r1 to get rid of > python dependency (requested by Diego Elio Pettenò, bug #402905).
A similar issue with gnome-base/libglade: bug #398955.
I wouldn't have made it a USE flag of gtk, gtk does not need it and apps needing this script would not necessarily have to depend on a specific slot of gtk that way.