Jim Meyering wrote: > Mike Frysinger wrote: > ... >>> I have mixed feelings. If someone is modifying sources and expecting >>> to be able to rebuild, they'd better have developer tools like perl. >>> >>> On the other hand, I dislike distributing a deliberately hamstrung >>> Makefile.in, even though this wart is only in a generated file, that >>> could easily be regenerated without the reduced dependency -- again, >>> assuming proper tools. >>> >>> An added bonus of your approach: we would no longer need to distribute >>> the man/*.1 files, and instead would generate them unconditionally, even >>> from tarballs. >> >> i think this is a step backwards. some people think of no perl as being >> crippled while others think of it as pointless bloat. > > Yes, this dichotomy is what I'm most leery of. > >> if the man page already exists in the dist, i don't see why we'd actively >> replace it with a man page that is known to be significantly worse to the >> point >> of uselessness. > > That would be a problem, but let's examine the conditions > required for that to happen: > > Someone starts from a release tarball, changes source and then wants > to regenerated a man/*.1 file, yet they do not have perl installed. > > One consequence of not having perl is that they are unable to run > a significant number of tests. While there are comparatively > few .pl test scripts, each typically runs many more tests than > the average .sh test script. > > Hence, I conclude that perl is already a build prerequisite for > any packager/installer who applies patches and expects to test their > result. Whether it is officially listed as a build-prerequisite in > every distro's packaging system is another matter entirely. > > This is making me think that it is almost an obligation > (force patchers to DRTR ;-) for us to list perl as a build-time > prerequisite... > > I'll sleep on it.
Would anyone object to making perl a build-time prerequisite? I.e., would this cause serious inconvenience? If you're building on a system for which you do not run all of the perl-dependent tests, you can't be very serious about quality.
