libungif: requires X by default?

[myrrhlin@…]

Updating my quite old macports I was surprised to find xorg-* packages being required by one of them, since I had not needed it before for any of my installed packages. [I have Apple's X11.app from the Developers Tools installed.] It was especially surprising since I was being selective about upgrades and checking dependencies as I went. Eventually I determined libungif to be the culprit.

I understand that substantial changes to ports may make use of new packages, and have no objection to this dependence, if it is indeed a new one.

Not being too familiar with the ports system innards, I don't know if this is a defect. Perhaps I am simply not understanding something. But from my standpoint, the following makes no sense (apologies for poor formatting):

$ port deps libungif

Full Name: libungif @4.1.4

libungif has no Build Dependencies, Runtime Dependencies, Fetch Dependencies, Library Dependencies, Extract Dependencies

$ port dependents xorg-libX11

libungif depends on xorg-libX11

I'm at a loss for what to do with this. I don't want two X11 systems installed.

[jmroot (Joshua Root)]

Libungif does not depend on the X libs unless the x11 variant is selected. The port dependents output may be due to #13054, but that does not affect what will be installed when you upgrade.

[myrrhlin@…]

and yet, i did not specify the variant +x11, and the xorg-* ports were installed when i upgraded libungif.