Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 10:46:42 -0600 From: Stephen Montgomery-Smith <stephen@math.missouri.edu> To: Paul Schmehl <pauls@utdallas.edu> Cc: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: (Very) bogus package dependencies Message-ID: <475D6D72.9060102@math.missouri.edu> In-Reply-To: <F84B28044B3CF9F18F4DF8CB@utd59514.utdallas.edu> References: <E1J0Q3W-0000NQ-D9@[24.61.20.41]> <1197264183.00839056.1197250802@10.7.7.3> <475D4E30.2030403@icyb.net.ua> <F84B28044B3CF9F18F4DF8CB@utd59514.utdallas.edu>
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Paul Schmehl wrote: > --On Monday, December 10, 2007 16:33:20 +0200 Andriy Gapon > <avg@icyb.net.ua> wrote: >> >>> From a small research it seems that the only thing needed from cdrtools >> is isoinfo utility which gets called in FreeBSD-specific code >> (hald/freebsd/probing/probe-volume.c) like follows: >> isoinfo -p -i %s >> And it seems that its only usage is to detect presence of directories >> named 'VIDEO_TS|VCD|SVCD', so that properties like >> volume.disc.is_videodvd could be set. >> >> Maybe there is a way to write code for this functionality that could be >> included into hal source code or as a port patch, so that hal doesn't >> have to depend on cdrtools. > > While I have no objections to this particular suggestion, my question > would be - where do you stop? You could easily do this for hundreds (if > not thousands of ports) that depend upon some other port because of one > piece of code. > > In general. port maintainers follow the guidelines of the software > developer. If the developer states that the software depends upon > cdrtools, then the maintainer is going to include that dependency in the > port. Many of us don't have sufficient skill to audit code and > determine where a dependency could be replaced by some additional code. > > So, while this might make sense in isolated cases, I don't think it > scales well. Furthermore, modern machines generally have enough disc > space that the addition of a few "unused" ports to include necessary > code is a small price to pay to distribute the load of providing ports > over a larger population of volunteers. (And yes, I know not everyone > has a modern machine or large discs to work with.) I agree. I think that in this case, cdrtools is a legitimate dependency. The fault (if any) lies not with FreeBSD, but either with the writers of hal, or the writers of xorg who made hal a dependency.
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