[RFC] Removal of Fortran from the base system

[Steve Kargl]

On Sat, May 27, 2006 at 04:55:50PM -0400, Alain Hebert wrote:
> Scott Long wrote:
> >Andrew R. Reiter wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>Scripps Institute of Oceanography
> >
> >Obviously a bunch of amateurs who don't really know what they want
> >or what they are doing.
> 
>    (We cannot expect everybody to be adult enought to get how to use 
> this mailing-list.)

Scott was obviously placing his tongue in his cheek.

>    The obvious reason was stated before that gFortran was not bug free 

Do you think gcc-3.4.4 is bug free?  Or gcc-4.1.1?  Or FreeBSD?

> and, in view of the importer, it would be best to have gFortran in ports 
> until the fortran community voice their opinion about which 
> implementations is the best one.

Actually, kan made the very good point that gfortran requires GMP and 
MPFR.  Importing these libraries for gfortran support would be
a mistake.  Afterall,  GMP was in the base at one point in time
and it was removed. 

>    Also, if there is no maintainer for a port, it ease the decision 
> about which one to keep without having to get in a language/religion war.

A port for gfortran is maintained, so this isn't an issue.  Additionally,
I'm listed as a gfortran maintainer and I almost exclusively use
FreeBSD, so gfortran orphaning FreeBSD won't happen.

-- 
Steve