Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 15:57:58 -0500 (EST) From: Chuck Robey <chuckr@glue.umd.edu> To: John Fieber <jfieber@indiana.edu> Cc: "David O'Brien" <obrien@NUXI.com>, Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>, cvs-all@freefall.freebsd.org, CVS-committers@freefall.freebsd.org, cvs-user@freefall.freebsd.org, ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/contrib/gcc/config/i386 freebsd-elf.h freebsd.h Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.95q.970217154959.8230E-100000@downlink.eng.umd.edu> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.95q.970217125906.28806A-100000@fallout.campusview.indiana.edu>
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On Mon, 17 Feb 1997, John Fieber wrote: > On Sun, 16 Feb 1997, David O'Brien wrote: > > > > It's too late for this. BSD4.4 has been out for years without it. To > > > begin with, using it would stop ports from running under old versions of > > > FreeBSD except when using it is bogus. > > > > True, but ports track -current. > > True, but the installed base -current is probably a lot smaller > than various stable versions. It is a shame that many ports > arrogantly disregard the substantial installed base of > "pre-current" when supporting them is often a trivial #ifdef > patch. I was annoyed to find that the apache port doesn't even > compile on something as recent as 2.2-BETA! Apache is certainly > a port of great interest to the "legacy" installed base. > > There are ports that simply won't fly on old versions; for > example stuff that requires a reasonably modern c++ compiler, but > many simply don't have a good excuse for being -current only. I'm going to comment one last time, then drop it. Your reason for not wanting to use the detection of __FreeBSD__ | __NetBSD__ | __OpenBSD__ is because it's not elegant enough for you. I can agree with the fact that it's not elegant, but it's the one and only solution that works. Your BSD4.4 (or anything else you care to call it) won't be accepted by the general software community because it tosses out OpenBSD, NetBSD, and all older version of any of them. You might get NetBSD and OpenBSD to begin to add it (I don't think you will, but you might) but it lets out all older versions completely. No one writing software today will agree with that, outside of the FreeBSD ports world, and not all of us. This same statement isn't true to the inelegant solution. Not one author writing software today will break his software for a large portion of the world, so that the small portion of us running current stay happy. The base point here is: you can choose either something elegant that's broken, or something inelegant that works. Your choice. ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Chuck Robey | Interests include any kind of voice or data chuckr@eng.umd.edu | communications topic, C programming, and Unix. 9120 Edmonston Ct #302 | Greenbelt, MD 20770 | I run Journey2 and picnic, both FreeBSD (301) 220-2114 | version 3.0 current -- and great FUN! ----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------
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