Date: Sat, 22 Jun 1996 16:51:54 -0500 (CDT) From: Tony Kimball <alk@Think.COM> To: hackers@freefall.freebsd.org Cc: phk@freebsd.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/etc/mtree BSD.usr.dist Message-ID: <199606222151.QAA02311@compound.Think.COM>
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Man pages are another component which I do not deem to be part of the base OS. One can install FreeBSD just dandy without man pages. (There is one problem: makewhatis is run by cron whether the man component is installed or not. That should be fixed, as it is trivial.) Games is another. DES is another. Perl does not belong in the BIN distribution. Perl is properly part of an administrative tools and scripting add-on just as optional as man pages. From: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@freebsd.org> Date: Sat, 22 Jun 1996 12:04:27 -0700 By having a perl in FreeBSD, we help the FreeBSD community to be able to use Perl, because they can trust that perl to be there. It make Perl a known quantity, as opposed to something people found somewhere and tried to compile as best they could. A known but incorrect quantity: perl4. It's like having #define M_PI (22.0/7.0) Remember all the noise and gnashing of teeth when the C compiler got "un-bundled" from SVR3 ? Because it is a commercial product and nobody wants to be gouged. By the argument of your mail X11 should be bundled as well. Its argument is scarcely coherent as an illustrative analogy, let alone sound. Layering and unbundling is GOOD. Orthogonality is GOOD. Freedom of choice is GOOD. Bloat is BAD. Forcing people to use obsolete software is BAD. But most of all, monolithic architectures in which dependencies are interwoven to the point of inextricability are BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD. I'm not talking about CVS trees. I'm talking about deliverables and global system design. I don't vitally care whether perl is part of /usr/src or /usr/ports (although the 4 vs. 5 problem argues in favor of ports, in my opinion). The only way to save FreeBSD from the guaranteed obsolescence implied by the last point is to insure that it decomposes into independent layered components. Upon reflection, this is the sole *real* reason why I will argue against perl everytime an argument is posted in favor of its inclusion in the base system. Every other reason I have explicitly proposed has been correctly refuted, and I know it. Still my opinion has not changed -- this despite the fact that I use perl daily and appreciate it's functionality greatly -- have done since 1985. That one reason is a determining factor in my motivation to repel the spurious insinuation of everyone's favorite language tool into the essential core of the FreeBSD distribution, for which hordes perl is merely the forerunner (as Poul's message well illustrates). //alk
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