LCA: Disintermediating distributions

The information *is* available in a structured way: search PKG_CONFIG_PATH 
and open the file named ${package}.pc therein (or in /usr/lib/pkgconfig if 
PKG_CONFIG_PATH is not set) and just parse the file directly. Its format 
is *really* not that complicated. I've parsed it in a few dozen lines of 
shell...