Let me jump back in one more time regarding multiple versions of perl module packages.
There is a nifty system for emacs versions in Debian, which has been mostly implemented in Fink (except that not every package follows it), in which various files are registered as emacs source files and then if you ever install a new version of emacs, they are automatically byte-compiled anew for the new version. It's nice, because any other package that want to provide a hook to emacs doesn't have to worry about which version of emacs is being used. It implies that all emacs byte-compiling is done in post-install scripts, so the .deb files themselves don't have to contain binaries for different emacs versions. However, my understanding is that this won't work for perl modules. There are enough differences between perl versions that perl module authors are often having to maintain multiple versions of their modules for different perl versions (or something... excuse my ignorance about this whole business)! And apparently, one wouldn't want to do the compiling post-install. So the only option I can see is that each Fink perl module package has to provide modules for some specific set of perl versions. If we allow the module to be compiled by each user with her own currently-installed version of perl, then we lose one of the fundamental features of Fink: that .deb files should be the same no matter who compiles them. If your Fink perl module is binary-compatible with different versions of perl no matter which version it is compiled with, then great! You just install it in both the /5.6.0 and /5.8.0 directories. However, if it only works with one version, or if it requires separate compilations for different versions, then that particular version or versions of perl must be available at build time. This was the reasoning behind my suggestion that there would need to be BuildDepends on multiple versions of perl. -- Dave P.S. I wasn't very clear on my suggestion about putting stuff in /sw/etc. There had been some discussion of a distinction between fink-installed perl modules, and user-installed perl modules. Do we want to encourage users to put things into the /sw tree? My idea was that if they did, the only place they should put them was someplace under /sw/etc. I am happy to withdraw the suggestion, but I'd like to hear an alternative. Or should we just expect that all users will install all of their perl modules via Fink? ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.NET email is sponsored by: SourceForge Enterprise Edition + IBM + LinuxWorld = Something 2 See! http://www.vasoftware.com _______________________________________________ Fink-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/fink-devel
