Re: Save a few hunderd kilobytes or a few hundred perl users?
On Thursday, May 2, 2002, at 12:56 , Mark Murray wrote: >> For me, nowadays 45MB is nothing compared to medium HDD capacity, and >> even >> my POCKET PC will easily accomodate it... > > 45 MB is fine as a port - we have ports that are way bigger than that. And we even have bigger ports that does take longer to build than 'make buildworld' the whole FreeBSD (which takes less than 30 minutes on Athron XP 1400 -- the fastest box I have at my fingertip). > As part of the base OS? Nope. The only functionality that we _need_ > is the basic language - effectively miniperl. But to sensibly strip down the distribution to just as much as needed does take a lot of something the most precious -- intellectual power. That I consider a waste. I don't think anyone objects that there are several hundred, or even thousand, files under /usr/src so long as it builds and so long as it nicely fits -- say, in a CD-ROM. FreeBSD 4.5-stable as of now is just 364,149 kBytes UNCOMPRESSED. Why don't you just untargz what Perl 5 porter has to offer and forget about what files should go and stay? You can easily install only needed parts. Speaking of which, the whole build process does not use objective-C (correct me if I am wrong). So if you insist on stripping Perl it may as well be unfair to leave GCC unstripped (I pretty much doubt GPL allows you to do so, however). Dan the Wanted for Bloating Perl 5.8 To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Re: Save a few hunderd kilobytes or a few hundred perl users?
First my apology for choices of stronger words than they have to. On Wednesday, May 1, 2002, at 03:03 , Mark Murray wrote: > Well, look at it this way. Perl is very hard to build already, and it > is very big, and you say it is getting bigger. All "base" freebsd needs > is the core language. The rest bloats the source tree, slows down builds > of the whole operating system and provides copious opportunities for > cross-builds and upgrades to fail. One of the reasons I have chosen FreeBSD over Linuxen is its tidiness and slimness. So I do understand your concerns. > Can we not come to a compromise here? One possible solution might be as follow; rename /usr/src/contrib/perl5 to /usr/src/contrib/miniperl5 and just add enough file to build miniperl. miniperl it may be it has all functionalities that should be required to 'make world' -- that is, of course, unless the build process uses external module. I don't think anyone would object to that (AFAIK you need perl to build kernel). > And it sounds like a perfect candidate for a FreeBSD "port". The > bash(1) developer develops on FreeBSD (IIRC). That is a port. I have > no idea how many other of our 6000+ ports are developed on FreeBSD, > we dont have those in the base system unless they are needed for > the core operating system (such needs are things like, say, > OpenSSH, Kerberos5/Heimdal, Bind, Less, etc in src/contrib/). Yes, I want p5-* cleaned up as well. I just 'grep ^p5- /usr/ports/INDEX' and found 660! That's way too many (or, at least two of which I have developed :). Maybe we should BSDPANize all these. I think if whole perl5 is distributed via ports only it wouldn've raised this much rants. FreeBSD does need perl in core but not the whole thing and that is the problem. But rule of the thumb is NOT TO REMOVE THE SOURCE. /usr/src MAY BLOAT because it doesn't get installed by default (there are already bloated charmingly; 34853 files under /usr/src on FreeBSD 4.5-stable). If you need size control do so via install process. I would love to help in this area. I think just a little tweak to hints file and you should be able to build a minimum perl just by passing right Configure directive. > You realise that you are asking for FreeBSD to bloat itself to > unusable levels by setting this precedent? How many _other_ > modules are coming in? How big is Perl going to get? How much > longer is it going to take to build? What other software authors > will thus have valid reasons for having _their_ software as part > of the base system instead of as a port? I don't mean to include those that don't come with perl-x.x.x.tar.gz. CGI.pm doesn't look like a necessity and it may even be true. But the perl community voted to include it to perl standard distribution. Besides, this 'pick, grok and trash or keep' process should be too time-consuming. perl-current is already > 3000 files big and it is already beyond a power of individual to look through every one of them. You need a better approach than handpick CGI.pm and others. >> P.S. I would rather choose the NetBSD way of detaching Perl from core >> distribution altogether. That is far more politically correct. > > There is merit to this point - make Perl5 a "super-port" (or > something), that is closer to the OS than a usual port but not part > of the base OS. I have no objection to this. Maybe python and ruby should go for that approach as well and I see that's the way to go -- for ports. We still need perl to build FreeBSD and we got to come up with a correct soultion -- not only politically but also technically. Your current soultion is, to say the least yet with all due respect, incorrect in both criteria. Dan the Proud Member of Both Communities To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Save a few hunderd kilobytes or a few hundred perl users?
Mark, and FreeBSD committers, I am deeply disappointed by the recent move to drop some of the files (CGI.pm, et al.) in perl distribution /usr/src/contrib/perl5. By saving a few hundred kilobytes, you are risking losing a few hundred perl hackers that run FreeBSD thereon. On Tuesday, April 30, 2002, at 11:06 , Mark Murray wrote: >> BTW, I develop perl scripts using CGI on systems that don't have >> apache, or any web server installed. It's not a requisite of cgi.pm, >> and it allows users to enter variable/value pairs on stdin when not >> running inside of a CGI environment. > > What is wrong with installing the CGI.pm port (which is usually more > up-to-date that the one bundled with perl)? Definitely nothing wrong for FreeBSD the Operating System and Perl the Programming Language. Nevertheless, that is dead wrong for Perl the Community and FreeBSD the Community in turn. To prove my point, let me quote the few from Perl5 porters. On Tuesday, April 30, 2002, at 09:50 , Christopher Masto wrote: > Seeing this happen makes me sad. It seems to go against the spirit of > the Artistic license. People who use "Perl" that comes with FreeBSD > won't be getting the standard Perl package. On Tuesday, April 30, 2002, at 10:25 , Chris Nandor wrote: > *ALL* of those files are in perl-5.6.1. Sys::Hostname and Sys::Syslog > certainly are; they are in ext/, however, and copied to lib/ when being > built. The others are a part of the CGI package. Please inform him > that he is incorrect. And please make sure that it is documented that > perl in FreeBSD is *not* the standard perl and is missing some key > pieces. :/ Of course, FreeBSD is not the only OS that chose to castrate Perl. On Tuesday, April 30, 2002, at 11:32 , Rafael Garcia-Suarez wrote: > Other vendors (debian...) also cut down the perl-5.6.1 package > to something more basic. I think that's OK to distribute CGI separately, > as it can be found on CPAN (as long as it's properly documented). > However, > cutting off packages that have no dual life on CPAN is more > questionable. I think castration is allowed when you MUST and when you CAN; Perl's Artistic License definitely allows you to castrate (and even mutilate if you will!). But that does not mean perl wants to be castrated at all. Like FreeBSD, perl is developed and maintained by a large team of individuals. Perl is not just a programming language as FreeBSD is not just an Operating System. By dropping CGI.pm or others that is harmless for base functionality does hurt the community. I hate to tell you this but I believe FreeBSD has already paid the price for disregarding the community. Are you--we (because I am part of the FreeBSD community, at least for the time being) going to repeat the same mistake? Rafael Garcia-Suarez also wrote: > Wait, vendors will soon have to struggle with the Borgified 5.8.0 > release... Now please allow me to get a little personal. I happened to maintain Encode, the largest module in Perl 5.8.0 by far. If you are to castrate, this will definitely the first one to be. The sad fact is that I develop this very module on FreeBSD! Since Encode is a part of Perl 5.8.0, I can't choose to license it so that you can't castrate. But that will disappoint me so much that I may join those who kissed FreeBSD good-bye like many others who have chosen to do so for the lack of regards. Because, I, for one, rather choose to be a part of a community than a programmer if I have to choose. Dan the *BSD advocate AND Perl5 Porter -- _ Dan Kogai __/ CEO, DAN co. ltd. /__ /-+-/ 2-8-14-418 Shiomi Koto-ku Tokyo 135-0052 Japan /--/--- mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] / http://www.dan.co.jp/ - __/ /Tel:+81 3-5665-6131 Fax:+81 3-5665-6132 GPG Key: http://www.dan.co.jp/~dankogai/dankogai.gpg.asc P.S. I would rather choose the NetBSD way of detaching Perl from core distribution altogether. That is far more politically correct. To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
