Let summarize a few obvious points: 1) Everybody who is participating in this conversation is doing so in order to help ordinary non-expert users. None of use will directly benefit from any cleanup in the autoconfiguration scripts.
Everybody on this list is an expert. We all figured out years ago how to configure, compile, and link FG. We do not need to explain to each other how to do it. As a related point, the whole effort toward making a new "release" depends on people who want to help ordinary non-expert users. Almost everybody on this list could happily use the development version forever. 2) Consider the following use-case scenario. Think about it from the viewpoint of Joe Schmoe, somebody who does not have as much skill or as much luck as the people on this list. -- Joe has a fairly standard 64-bit Linux box. -- Joe configures, compiles, and installs OSG from source, "straight out of the box" according to the directions. So far so good. -- Joe configures, compiles, and installs plib "straight out of the box" according to the directions. So far so good. -- Joe configures simgear "straight out of the box" according to the instructions. The ./configure script says the configuration is correct. However the configuration is not correct. The makefiles generated by ./configure produce link errors. This is a bug. This is so obviously a bug that I am embarrassed to discuss it. Yes, you can get FG to compile "out of the box" if you compile OSG using a completely undocumented non-obvious option. This is entirely true but it entirely misses the point. On the other side of the same coin, you can configure OSG "out of the box" if you are willing to configure FG with completely undocumented non-obvious options. This, too, is entirely true but entirely misses the point. Instead the point should be that Joe Schmoe is going to have a bad experience. When the simgear "make" fails at a late step, Joe is going to have little idea what went wrong, and less idea how to fix it. The fact that *I* know how to fix it is not the point. The fact that ten other people on this list know how to fix it is not the point. The ./configure script is supposed to check that all the right libraries are found. If they are not found it is supposed to print an informative, user-friendly message. If they are found, it is supposed to remember where they were found and then build a makefile that knows about them. The current ./configure script does not meet specifications. This is a bug. It is not a problem for me, but it is a problem for Joe. 3) See item 1. The only reason we are having this conversation is because we want to be unselfish. We want to make things better for Joe. 4) There's a lot more I could say about this, but I'll stop here for now. If anybody has further questions, please ask. ======= If you are wondering about the Subject line: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribunus_plebis ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Planet: dedicated and managed hosting, cloud storage, colocation Stay online with enterprise data centers and the best network in the business Choose flexible plans and management services without long-term contracts Personal 24x7 support from experience hosting pros just a phone call away. http://p.sf.net/sfu/theplanet-com _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
