From owner-freebsd-ports  Sun Jul  4 22:48:49 1999
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Date: Sun, 4 Jul 1999 22:48:47 -0700 (PDT)
From: <jkoshy@FreeBSD.org>
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To: Ian Hutchinson <hutch@psfc.mit.edu>
Cc: ports@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: TtH Description Correction Request 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 04 Jul 1999 22:35:15 -0400."
             <378019E3.48EF1ADC@psfc.mit.edu> 
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Ian,

> I want to ask that you correct the list of programs that you say
> TtH "requires":
> 'Requires: XFree86-3.3.3.1, ghostscript-5.10, gsfonts-5.10, jpeg-6b,
> netpbm-94.3.1, png-1.0.3, teTeX-0.4, tiff-3.4b37'
> 
> In point of fact, TtH "requires" none of the programs you list.
> It will use some of them [but never XFree or tiff] in some situations if
> they are available. But it is one of the strengths of TtH that it DOES
> NOT require this other stuff, [unlike some of the competing LaTeX
> translators]. Therefore your list gives a completely false impression,
> which I ask you to correct.

This could be considered both a 'bug' and a 'feature' in our package
system.  

Since packages are pre-compiled and ready to install, there is a tendency
among port skeleton creators to include the maximum possible functionality.
This can be viewed as a bug because it unnecessarily adds bloat to the
packages.  As an example, installing KDE used to (and still does I think)
pull in MESA (OpenGL) libraries, because one of the screensavers that was
bundled in the KDE package uses OpenGL!  Now, dependencies are computed
transitively, so the final dependency list for a large package can be
really surprising.

Some folks prefer the maximum possible functionality, of course, and don't
mind the extra disk space used up.

Note also that these 'false' dependencies are only an issue if you want to
install the pre-packaged binaries of the ported software.  When you
building a port from scratch, then you get full control over all
dependencies. 

So, in summary, it isn't TtH per-se that requires all these dependencies,
but the pre-compiled FreeBSD package that requires them.  If the user wants
a lighter version of TtH, or a version that is customized in a way
different from the pre-built one, then he or she is encouraged to actually
build the port, using the port skeleton provided.  This is really simple,
and in most cases just involves:

	$ cvs checkout tth
	[...cvs output elided...]
	$ cd tth
	$ make
	[...make output elided, make will fetch the necessary tarballs, 
	    patch and build them...]
	$ sudo make install


Regards,
Koshy
<jkoshy@freebsd.org>




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