Re: [Administrivia] On ruby and contrib/
- From
- Greg Troxel <gdt@ir.bbn.com>
- Date
- Jun 6, 2013, 17:16 UTC
- Message-ID
- <rmisj0vnorm.fsf@fnord.ir.bbn.com>
- In-Reply-To
- <CAMP44s07p0vpS_2cjAjB=QWoZjjPSuAm09xwk4BjAAD+hsJrSw@mail.gmail.com>
Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> writes:
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> On Thu, Jun 6, 2013 at 9:54 AM, Greg Troxel <gdt@ir.bbn.com> wrote: >> >> git is a core tool that people use on almost the smallest of boxes, >> perhaps even replacing rcs for managing local config files. On such >> machines, even perl may be large, but a second scripting language seems >> excessive. > > You can compile Git without any of them.
That ignores the 99% of people who use packaged versions. The question is really "Should the standared approach for building be to use or not use dependency X?". Really this should be expressed in the README, and it creates expectations for someone who just installs the git package in terms of whether pieces of functionality are there. Packagers generally should be reading the README and including required/recommended dependencies and not including optional dependencies (in the main package). The information in INSTALL is pretty reasonable, but it doesn't really clearly say "if you hand someone git built without perl, it is { perfectly ok but missing a fringe optional feature | deficient because "git add -p" won't work }. I'm leaning towards the "deficient" camp.
So "you can compile git without X" should really translate into "when one runs the default build following the instructions, and does not take affirmative steps to use X, X should not be used or depended on". If it doesn't mean that, it doesn't help the packaging/expectations discussion.
It's of course fine that one can hand-compile a smaller than standard but still useful subset. But that's entirely different from the definition of normal.
Show 8 quoted lines
>> On a NetBSD 6 i386 system, the size of the ruby193-base >> binary package (as installed) is 25 MB (vs 15 MB for the git base >> package, which lacks gitk and docs). (Presently, the git base package >> defaults to requiring python and installing the git_remote_helpers, but >> I think that's a bug.) perl is 54 MB. > > That's only the default, if the default doesn't suit you, don't use > the default.
It's not about what I want. It's about making choices that affect other people, and trying to find a plan that will be overall reasonable; that's the essence of stewardship in packaging. Compiling for just myself is far easier.