questions about extended attributes support across *nix & osx (hfs+) filesys

[snowcrash+rsync]

i've built up rsync on both opensuse & osx from src.

on osx, it's v2.6.3 w/ both apple's "Extended Attributes" patches:

   http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/10.4.8.ppc/rsync-24/patches/EA.diff
   http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/10.4.8.ppc/rsync-24/patches/PR-3945747-endian.diff

and the 'lartmaker' fix (iteself, slightly fixed ...):

	wget http://www.lartmaker.nl/rsync/rsync-tiger-fixes.diff

applied.

these patches don't currently apply as-is to rsync v2.6.9.

using the patched bins, mac-to-mac -- or more correctly, hfs+-to-hfs+
-- rsync seems to correctly preserve file attributes. to my
understanding, most if not all, anyway ...

and, of course, linux-TO-mac rsync -- without extended attributes
enabled -- also works fine.

but, iiuc (and i know i may not!), backing up extended attributes FROM
mac TO a linux store is not yet reliable.

i've been somewhat following the disscussion(s) here about acl & xattr
support being built into latest rsync.

i can readily build v2.6.9 on opensuse with these options enabled.
but, as i've been told to keep rsync versions across boxes/platform
in-sync, i'm using v2.6.3 on opensuse without the acl/xattr support.

given all that, i have a couple of questions:

(1) i note that the 'new' xattr/acl support applies to osx as well.
is this intended to replace apple's patched support?

(2) at least on v2.6.9-release, the build w/ xattr/acl patches applied
seems to require a number of header files from non-osx bundled
sources, including but not necessarily limited to ...

	glibc-2.5.90-6.src.rpm
	attr-2.4.32-1.1.cpio
	acl-2.2.39-1.1.src.rpm

which i extract tarballs from w/ 'rpm2cpio' & 'cpio -idm', as usual ...

i'm guessing that these dependencies are provided for in available pkg
systems (darwinports, fink, etc).

will these dependencies be resolved -- either by bundling req'd
headers with the distro, or by finding/using osx equivalents?

thanks.