Date: Mon, 5 Jul 1999 08:58:03 -0400 (EDT) From: <hutch@psfc.mit.edu> To: jkoshy@FreeBSD.org Cc: ports@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: TtH Description Correction Request Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.10.9907050834470.11014-100000@silas.psfc.mit.edu> In-Reply-To: <199907050548.WAA69607@freefall.freebsd.org>
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I agree that the problem is basically with your package system. Although I can't for the life of me see why XFree should be needed to run netpbm. Still, if you say it does ... One thing I can't see with your dependency system is where it can stop. Shouldn't you also include the shell, bash for example. Why doesn't that get listed, together with the rest of the operating system that is needed to run anything. Or again, one could argue that every package that puts out a graphic output needs a display system like X to be useful, even if the program would run without it. Do you claim, for example, that emacs "requires" TeX, because it is capable of running it and this is a useful functionality? This is a rather close parallel to TtH calling TeX. I don't see how you can be consistent here. The other comment I have is that you might consider having two categories: 1. Required. 2. Taken advantage of if present. I admit that distinguishing these might be a subjective call, but I suspect no more so than the sorts of choices I indicate above. Anyway, I don't want to make a big deal out of this except that TtH the executable runs perfectly well in its default mode and produces HTML output with NONE of the packages you list. I deliberately built it that way so that people on any system could use it. That is totally different from LaTeX2HTML which requires PERL, LaTeX, Ghostscript and several other packages before it can even run. I also deliberately emphasize in the documentation that the external programs like ps2gif etc are the user's responsibility, if they want to use them. Therefore, yes, it is your seemingly rather subjective dependency system for Freebsd ports that is the problem. Regards, Ian Hutchinson, Plasma Science and Fusion Center, MIT. http://psfc.mit.edu/~hutch/home.html On Sun, 4 Jul 1999 jkoshy@FreeBSD.org wrote: > > > Ian, > > > I want to ask that you correct the list of programs that you say > > TtH "requires": > > 'Requires: XFree86-3.3.3.1, ghostscript-5.10, gsfonts-5.10, jpeg-6b, > > netpbm-94.3.1, png-1.0.3, teTeX-0.4, tiff-3.4b37' > > > > In point of fact, TtH "requires" none of the programs you list. > > It will use some of them [but never XFree or tiff] in some situations if > > they are available. But it is one of the strengths of TtH that it DOES > > NOT require this other stuff, [unlike some of the competing LaTeX > > translators]. Therefore your list gives a completely false impression, > > which I ask you to correct. > > This could be considered both a 'bug' and a 'feature' in our package > system. > > Since packages are pre-compiled and ready to install, there is a tendency > among port skeleton creators to include the maximum possible functionality. > This can be viewed as a bug because it unnecessarily adds bloat to the > packages. As an example, installing KDE used to (and still does I think) > pull in MESA (OpenGL) libraries, because one of the screensavers that was > bundled in the KDE package uses OpenGL! Now, dependencies are computed > transitively, so the final dependency list for a large package can be > really surprising. > > Some folks prefer the maximum possible functionality, of course, and don't > mind the extra disk space used up. > > Note also that these 'false' dependencies are only an issue if you want to > install the pre-packaged binaries of the ported software. When you > building a port from scratch, then you get full control over all > dependencies. > > So, in summary, it isn't TtH per-se that requires all these dependencies, > but the pre-compiled FreeBSD package that requires them. If the user wants > a lighter version of TtH, or a version that is customized in a way > different from the pre-built one, then he or she is encouraged to actually > build the port, using the port skeleton provided. This is really simple, > and in most cases just involves: > > $ cvs checkout tth > [...cvs output elided...] > $ cd tth > $ make > [...make output elided, make will fetch the necessary tarballs, > patch and build them...] > $ sudo make install > > > Regards, > Koshy > <jkoshy@freebsd.org> > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-ports" in the body of the message
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