On Apr 1, 2008, at 2:45 AM, Robert Hinn wrote:
Hm, do you suggest using and linking only to ports? I find the lib:*
dependency quite useful as I'm using the official .dmg package of
MySQL from the MySQL homepage instead of the mac port (mainly
because I've already been using it before installing MacPorts).
Allowing such dependencies offers end users more choice in what
software "distribution" to use, as long as libraries are correct.
Sorry if I misunderstood you, just wanted to point out that
dependencies against non-ports software can make sense for some
people ;-)
I'm not going so far as to suggest that dependencies should be limited
to items in the Depot, and I definitely see the value of being able to
link with components of the OS which would be painful to duplicate
(all of X11 comes to mind) or have been specifically optimized so as
to make them more attractive than the MacPorts-provided ones. What
I'm saying is that for the MacPorts-provided dependencies, being able
to force them into the depot and out of /opt/local would allow a lot
more things to coexist simultaneously. As MacPorts grows into a real
collection (4,622 ports may seem a lot, but it's nothing close to
FreeBSD's 18,280), this will become a larger and larger problem.
FreeBSD "solves" it by doing namespace munging for every port that
conflicts (/usr/local/bin/foo-5.6.2, /usr/lib/libfoo.5.6.2.so, /usr/
include/foo-5.6.2 and so on), which is about as much work as forcing
things into the depot without the benefits of having an "uncluttered" /
usr/local by default.
- Jordan
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