[gentoo-user] mysql is being pulled in again!

[Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com>]

I am trying to understand what is pulling in mysql again.  This
morning a load of qt packages were being updated and I noticed a bunch
of perl and virtual packages in there too.  Rest assured dev-db/mysql
was in there, again.  This is despite the fact that the mysql use flag
seem to be not active as far as portage is concerned:

# euse -i mysql
global use flags (searching: mysql)
************************************************************
[-    ] mysql - Adds mySQL Database support

local use flags (searching: mysql)
************************************************************
[-    ] mysql (app-admin/ulogd):
Build MYSQL output plugin to save packets in a mysql database.

[-    ] mysql (net-misc/mediatomb):
Use dev-db/mysql as backend rather than SQLite3. If this USE flag is
disabled, dev-db/sqlite is used in its stead.

Looking into it further I see that the virtual package is pulling the
database in:

# equery depends dev-db/mysql
[ Searching for packages depending on dev-db/mysql... ]
virtual/mysql-5.0 (=dev-db/mysql-5.0*)

# equery depends virtual/mysql
[ Searching for packages depending on virtual/mysql... ]
dev-db/mysql-5.0.84-r1 (=virtual/mysql-5.0)
dev-libs/cyrus-sasl-2.1.23-r1 (mysql? virtual/mysql)
dev-libs/redland-1.0.10-r1 (mysql? virtual/mysql)
dev-perl/DBD-mysql-4.00.5 (virtual/mysql)
x11-libs/qt-sql-4.6.2 (mysql? virtual/mysql)

So, is this telling me the virtual mysql package depends of the real
mysql and vice versa?  Should I give up and accept that just like a
LAMP build, from now on a Linux desktop *must* run mysql and nothing
else will do?  I've read that sqlite is borked and won't do what
semantic-desktop wants, but what about people who for arguments sake
want to run postgress or some other database?
-- 
Regards,
Mick