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Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 07:54:45 -0700
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To: gryphon@healer.com, terry@lambert.org
Subject: Re: ports startup scripts
Cc: hackers@freebsd.org, jmb@kryten.atinc.com, peter@taronga.com
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|>  > True.  But consider what happens if you then install something that
|>  > has a startup dependancy on having an SMTP server running.  If it
|>  > is using a fixed sequence number, it doesn't care what the SMTP
|>  > server is called; it just assumes that any replacement will use the
|>  
|>  The makefile concept done a little carefully takes care of this:
|>  
|>  We have the mail depenendcy be
|>  
|>  	smtp-daemon: sendmail $SENDMAIL_ARGS
|>  
|>  	package: smtp-daemon
|>  
|>  Now it doesn't care what the smtp-daemon target does, as long as
|>  it executes successfully. (This assume compatibility between the
|>  two different SMTP daemons for package purposes, but if you don't
|>  have that the point is moot anyway).

I think I missed some of the details of the Makefile proposal.  How
does a package install it's make dependancies?  Does it add lines to
the makefile, or is the makefile dynamically generated by concatenating
a bunch of small per-service make fragments?

If it adds lines to the makefile, it still suffers from the auto-edit
safty concerns that the straight control file scheme does.  (Although
it does eliminate the concerns about getting the order right.)

If it includes a bunch of small fragments, that seems like an unnecessary
extra complication.

And I think that either the file-name-ordering or straight-control-file
scheme would make it easier to quickly review which services are started
in what order than any make-based scheme.  (But I'm willing to be convinced
otherwise.)



-Pat