From owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jun 29 04:43:05 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AFB9416A4CE for ; Tue, 29 Jun 2004 04:43:05 +0000 (GMT) Received: from pintail.mail.pas.earthlink.net (pintail.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.122]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9D1A043D1D for ; Tue, 29 Jun 2004 04:43:05 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from melsonr@earthlink.net) Received: from user-0cei9ap.cable.mindspring.com ([24.233.37.89] helo=aragorn.rgmhome.net) by pintail.mail.pas.earthlink.net with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 1BfASX-0001Db-00 for freebsd-ports@freebsd.org; Mon, 28 Jun 2004 21:43:05 -0700 Received: from [127.0.0.1] (localhost.rgmhome.net [127.0.0.1]) by aragorn.rgmhome.net (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id i5T4h3m0089712 for ; Mon, 28 Jun 2004 22:43:03 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from melsonr@earthlink.net) Message-ID: <40E0F356.8030603@earthlink.net> Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2004 22:43:02 -0600 From: Bob Melson Organization: Dept. of Paleocomputing, Whatsamatta U. User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040628 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org X-Enigmail-Version: 0.84.0.0 X-Enigmail-Supports: pgp-inline, pgp-mime Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-AntiVirus: checked by AntiVir Milter 1.1-beta; AVE 6.26.0.3; VDF 6.26.0.7 (host: aragorn.rgmhome.net) X-Spam-Status: No, hits=0.0 required=5.0 tests=none autolearn=no version=2.63 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on aragorn.rgmhome.net Subject: A question about dependencies X-BeenThere: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting software to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 04:43:05 -0000 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Having started a major uproar on the comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc newsgroup by asking why so seemingly many of the ports in the ports tree are listed as requiring python in order to compile and run, I'll ask the question here, where I may get an answer. Briefly, I discovered on my system some 124 ports of 600+ that show python as a requirement. Granted that many are probably cascading requirements: A requires B which requires C which requires python, so A and B are shown to depend on it; this still seems to me to be a problem. To the extent that I believe this to be a problem, it seems to be to be one of management and practice. At the same time, it seems also to reflect a degree of, for lack of a better word, sloppiness. Don't get me wrong, I think the ports system to be one of the many outstanding features of FreeBSD and I genuinely appreciate the work done be all the folks here who volunteer time and skill in making it so. Still, if this business with the python dependencies is any indicator, the system could be improved, although I'm unable to say how. Bob Melson - -- Robert G. Melson Nothing is more terrible than Rio Grande MicroSolutions ignorance in action. El Paso, Texas Goethe melsonr(at)earthlink(dot)net -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQFA4PNWGX60pjRVDrMRAvO/AKCk1HBDOAWBmAP8sH77jNvbwJe+9wCfcu+E rZAuiKEiu5oBJg7QcDhcqX4= =Tlte -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----