Ports 104877 causing big problems

[Doug Barton]

Ade Lovett wrote:
> 
> On Mar 09, 2007, at 22:47 , Doug Barton wrote:
>> On it's face I find the idea of bumping PORTREVISION for every port 
>> that uses libtool in any form a sort of silly proposition. The change 
>> in behavior was introduced in Mk/*, I think it's reasonable to expect 
>> that the fix happen there too.
> 
> Ok.  Let's take this opportunity right here to take a step back and look 
> at the rather larger picture.

[ Description of how we got to this point snipped ]

> End result, FreeBSD is now considerably more "in-line" with Linux and 
> pkgsrc with respect to autotools handling.  It's by no means perfect, 
> but it's *a lot* better than it was. 

No one is debating that, at least I am certainly not. You've done a 
lot of hard work, and I agree that we're better off now than we were 
before. In fact, I was one of the people that supported the decision 
to install the .la files, so I'm right here with you.

> So, seemingly innocuous changes like changing the semantics of what a 
> well-established port variable like GNU_CONFIGURE has potentially 
> far-reaching consequences. 

No argument there either.

> The armchair generals are more than welcome 
> to debate to their hearts content the idyllic solution, but there are 
> real-world constraints that prevent such nirvana.

I don't know what the right solution is, so I'm not going to argue 
strongly in favor of changing the behavior of GNU_CONFIGURE. However 
my gut instinct is that what you're proposing is simply not feasible, 
and furthermore I don't think we can wait that long. This problem gets 
worse almost every time one of our users updates or installs a port.

> As autotools maintainer, I have laid out a potential course of action to 
> this (as yet unproven) problem 

If you don't think the example of mine that you snipped proves that 
there is a problem, perhaps you can describe in what way you find it 
deficient, and what sort of testing you would consider valid?

> it's not related to +REQUIRED_BY, as 
> already pointed out.  Braino on my part, this is compile and run-time 
> issues, not a ports dependency issue.  My apologies.

I think it's both, since there is absolutely no reason that mtr, 
xscreensaver, or 3/4 of the other ports that I currently have in 
/var/db/pkg/libgpg-error/+REQUIRED_BY should have registered a 
dependency on that library, since they don't need or use it.

> I don't for one minute pretend to be the absolute authority on 
> autotools, however I believe that I happen to know a reasonable amount, 
> resulting from my shepherding of them over the past few years.  Of 
> course, if someone else wants to step up to the plate and continue the 
> good fight, that's fine by me.  Send me your freefall login, and the 
> ports and infrastructure will be handed over in a heartbeat.

I think you're getting extremely reactionary and defensive here, and 
there is no reason for either. No one is attacking you, or your work. 
What we are saying is that there _is_ a problem. The exact cause(s) 
and solution(s) of the problem may not be known at this time, but it 
would be a big help if you could recognize that there is in fact a 
problem, and start working with us on a reasonable solution.

Doug

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