A question about dependencies

[Bob Melson]

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Having started a major uproar on the comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
newsgroup by asking why so seemingly many of the ports in the ports tree
are listed as requiring python in order to compile and run, I'll ask the
question here, where I may get an answer.

Briefly, I discovered on my system some 124 ports of 600+ that show
python as a requirement.  Granted that many are probably cascading
requirements:  A requires B which requires C which requires python, so A
and B are shown  to depend on it; this still seems to me to be a problem.

To the extent that I believe this to be a problem, it seems to be to be
one of management and practice.  At the same time, it seems also to
reflect a degree of, for lack of a better word, sloppiness.  Don't get
me wrong, I think the ports system to be one of the many outstanding
features of FreeBSD and I genuinely appreciate the work done be all the
folks here who volunteer time and skill in making it so.  Still, if this
business with the python dependencies is any indicator, the system could
be improved, although I'm unable to say how.

Bob Melson

- --
Robert G. Melson            Nothing is more terrible than
Rio Grande MicroSolutions   ignorance in action.
El Paso, Texas              Goethe
melsonr(at)earthlink(dot)net
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