Make python27 build as an unprivileged user

[Julio Merino]

On Thu, Apr 3, 2014 at 3:30 PM, Antoine Brodin <antoine at freebsd.org> wrote:
> koobs' new python34 port (not committed yet) packages fine as non
> root, so it seems doable.

Sorry but I don't see how that's relevant. Python 3.4 is a much more
modern package than 2.7 and many things may have changed in its build
infrastructure.

Yes, fixing the root cause is doable for sure, and I agree with you
that, ideally, this should be properly fixed. But: I don't think it's
worth our time considering that: 1) this is for the "old" 2.x branch
and 2) some knowledgeable people have already tried and failed at
doing so.

As things currently are, the python27 package is broken when building
from ports as non-root.  (Which by the way is annoying for
architectures without prebuilt packages; I have found this problem
under powerpc64!)

What I'm proposing is that we trivially workaround the problem by
*temporarily* defining NEED_ROOT and later investigating the failure.
Doing the former does not preclude the latter, but at least fixes the
obvious bug.

I don't want to put words on your mouth, but what I think you are
proposing is that we leave the package broken for an arbitrary
(possibly infinite) amount of time until someone decides to track and
fix the root cause. If you are offering to investigate this relatively
soon as the maintainer that's perfect though.

So up to you really! If you do not agree with the workaround, I will
at least file a PR for proper tracking.

Thanks