RFC: MK_BLOBS build option

[Robert Millan]

Hi David,

El 23 de gener de 2012 19:34, David Schultz <das at freebsd.org> ha escrit:
> There has been recent work on the ports system to allow users to
> specify what licenses are considered acceptable for software
> installed on their machines.  The blob issue reflects a similar
> concern, so it's worth looking at what they have done to see if
> there are any good ideas you might want to adopt:
>
>        http://wiki.freebsd.org/PortsLicenseInfrastructure
>
> In particular, maybe someone will want to add a way to disable
> building drivers covered by GPL, APSL, etc.  So does it make sense
> to rename the knob to something along the lines of
> `ACCEPTABLE_LICENSES+=blob'?
>
> Note that this is a mostly uninformed suggestion, so if you're
> already aware of the ports license infrastructure work and don't
> think it's apropos to this knob, then don't worry about it.

I looked in detail at the documentation you pointed.  My impression is
that this infrastructure is designed to address a very different
problem.  Some notable differences:

  - It concerns about things like license compatibility between ports.
 If there's a license incompatibility in kernel, it affects the whole
tree, it's a lot more manual verification work which is already in
place.

  - In src MK_* build options are already stablished practice. Adding
new options and using them in Makefiles fits well with the desired
goal.

  - src already has a license split (/gnu, /cddl...) and the diversity
of license groups is much smaller.  There are already build options
concerned with GPL, for example MK_BSD_GREP. When some users have had
this need, existing MK_* framework seems to have satisfied them.

[1] http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2006-March/061725.html