>>>>> "Brad" == Brad Knowles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
At 1:03 PM +0900 2004-11-30, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote: > AC_CHECK_HEADER(Python.h, , got_python_h=yes)]) > if test $got_python_h != yes -a $os = linux; then > echo 'If you're on Linux, you have the "binary distro no -devel > rpm" bug!' > echo 'Switch to an Industrial-Strength OS such as NetBSD immediately!' > echo 'Gentoo Linux will do, too.' Brad> But then you have to do this for every OS in Brad> existence. You'd have to wrap a conditional of this sort Brad> around every single file that building Mailman might Brad> require, but which is not included as part of Mailman Brad> itself. Of course you don't. The point is to test for one specific kind of brain damage that is well-known, very common, and even bites people who know what they're doing, not to mention being very confusing for newbies. You can leave out the test for Linux, and simply say "If you don't even have Python.h, you probably are missing many, many files required to build Mailman. Perhaps your OS has separate 'development' packages?" The problem is not to build a fool-proof safety net; I'll put my money on the fool, every time. The point is to forestall one particular FAQ. Brad> I'm sorry, but this is a totally non-scalable Brad> suggestion. If all we had to do was to support a single OS, Brad> that would be fine. But we can't do everyone's job for Brad> them, and if the RPM builders want to have multiple Brad> different versions of Python (or whatever else Mailman might Brad> depend on), then they need to take the responsibility of Brad> dealing with the resulting issues. Wishful thinking. By allocating the headers to the devel packages, they've already indicated that in their opinion it's somebody else's problem. I dunno what Messrs. Warsaw et cie. think, but in my experience this kind of hacking pays of in noticably reduced user frustration and somewhat reduced FAQmeister effort. -- Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp University of Tsukuba Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN Ask not how you can "do" free software business; ask what your business can "do for" free software. ------------------------------------------------------ Mailman-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/