Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 17:48:35 +0200 From: Anders Nordby <anders@fix.no> To: FreeBSD Ports <freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Port dependencies revisited Message-ID: <19990504174834.A61935@totem.fix.no>
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(Sorry if I'm chewing on old stuff here, just tell me and I'll stop.) Having ported a few apps that require x11 stuff (kvirc - requires kdelibs, nessus - requires gtk), I noticed a slight problem in the ports system: Lots of ports require specific packages, mostly the latest versions. Now, wouldn't we be better off being able to specify alternative dependencies? Like say, my kvirc port requires kdelibs11, but can really do with kdelibs (the 1.0 thing). A user can have several reasons to not always have the latest versions of the dependencies installed: - Limited bandwidth Upgrading dependencies costs bandwidth. - Limitied time Upgrading dependencies takes time. - Limited resources Upgrading dependencies costs resources on the systems involved. - Stability, correctness Newer versions of the packages depended on might not be as stable, and might not actually work at all as of backward compatibility problems. Newer code isn't necessarily better. ,) In other words, what I suggest is and'ing and or'ing between LIB_DEPENDS, BUILD_DEPENDS and RUN_DEPENDS (etc.) to specify all possible combinations of dependencies that will do. Does this seem feasible or even sensible to you in any way? -- Anders Nordby ^ anders@fix.no ^ http://anders.fix.no/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-ports" in the body of the message
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