Re: RFC: Rules for distro-friendly packages
* Bernhard R. Link <brlink@debian.org> schrieb:
> Well, I doubt one of those POVs is more valid than the other. While
> features are an interesting point, the user is often more interested
> in "how do I get this to work with the maximum of functionality it
> can provide given what I have or can reasonably get". From this point
> of view, denoting which libraries are there and which are not is more
> interesting.
Add proper information on feature's dependencies in configure --help
output should suffice.
> Another user might want a special feature and then only
> get warnings for what they still need. So a perfect system would have
> both features (via --(enable|disable)-xyz) and optional dependencies
> (via --with[out]-abc), while a pragmatic system will have those that
> make the most sense in a specific case.
I still don't see a valid reason why some should want to switch
dependencies. If you enabled a feature with some unsatisfied
dependency, configure will tell that.
> > For example,
> > an feature could be supporting compressed files, implemented using
> > zlib or libbz2.
>
> Actually, that is an example that shows that not everything is features.
> Take for example reprepro: if you have libbz2 at compile time, it will
> use libbz2 for supporting .bz2 files. If you do not have it, it will
> call bunzip2.
The feature would be called "builtin-bunzip". It's benefit over not
having it is a possible speedup. In this case we don't have a strictly
functional, but a technical implementation feature.
> The only 'feature' to select here is whether some library
> is used or not, so that is a --with[out]-libbz2 and a --enable
> would not really make sense.
Using some library isn't a feature, instead a technical decision.
As said, the feature - IOW what user gains from this, is an
possible speedup by calling decompression code directly, instead
of having to pipe it to another process.
cu
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Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- http://www.metux.de/
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