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Date:      Sat, 2 Jun 2001 17:42:32 -0500
From:      Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>
To:        obrien@freebsd.org
Cc:        portmgr@freebsd.org, ports@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: WITHOUT_X vs. WITHOUT_X11 vs. NO_X
Message-ID:  <15129.27608.566627.803030@guru.mired.org>
In-Reply-To: <20010602101544.A74982@dragon.nuxi.com>
References:  <15127.61125.223478.210748@guru.mired.org> <20010602091237.B73968@dragon.nuxi.com> <20010602101544.A74982@dragon.nuxi.com>

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David O'Brien <obrien@freebsd.org> types:
> *sigh* this is coming up *AGAIN*?!?!?

Yes.

> Portsmgrs, when this last came up, people seemed to agree on
> "WITHOUT_X11" so I changed my ports to use that.  Now it seems WITHOUT_X
> has gotten documented as the proper way.

Nobody documented the previous decision, so when someone decided that
this knob should be documented, there was nothing to say what should
be documented.

> We came to a consensus to use "WITHOUT_X11" in a discussion on
> freebsd-ports April 26-May 2, 2001.
> 
> It seems that "WITHOUT_X" was recently "decided" upon by the freebsd-doc
> list and may have gotten written down somewhere.  I don't know why
> freebsd-doc thinks it can decide ports issues.  But anyway this is what
> is adding to the confusion.

It happens this way because freebsd-doc documents things, and
freebsd-ports didn't tell freebsd-doc what they had decided. So when I
submitted a PR documenting the variable I saw being used, they
verified that it was being used, and committed it.  If it had been
documented in the first place, I wouldn't have submitted a PR. If
freebsd-ports had told freebsd-doc that a decision had been made, then
the committer might have known to fix it. If someone who followed
freebsd-ports also followed freebsd-doc, they could have pointed out
the decision that had been made, and gotten it fixed as well.

There was a complete breakdown in communications. freebsd-core has
just asked for volunteers for what amounts to a secretary. It looks
like freebsd-ports needs that service as well.

> As our Ports Collection leaders, please consider the below and decree
> what the correct knob will be so we can get on with our lives.

Well, if we're going to open it up for discussion, I think it should
work like the GNOME/GTK/GLIB/etc. knobs. Ports would set WANT_X. The
makefiles would check to see if the user had set WITH_X or WITHOUT_X
and if neither were set, check to see if X was installed, then set
HAVE_X appropriately. The port would then check HAVE_X to see if it
should build with or without X.

	<mike

"Without software, it's just sand."
	- Sybase engineering group T-shirt
"Without documentation, it's just software."
	- Sybase documentation group T-shirt

--
Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>			http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.

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