From owner-freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Sat Oct 1 02:35:47 2016 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-ports@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 85430C03149 for ; Sat, 1 Oct 2016 02:35:47 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from julian@freebsd.org) Received: from mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (mailman.ysv.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::50:5]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 72B79EA3 for ; Sat, 1 Oct 2016 02:35:47 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from julian@freebsd.org) Received: by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) id 72140C03148; Sat, 1 Oct 2016 02:35:47 +0000 (UTC) Delivered-To: ports@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 71BEFC03147 for ; Sat, 1 Oct 2016 02:35:47 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from julian@freebsd.org) Received: from vps1.elischer.org (vps1.elischer.org [204.109.63.16]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (Client CN "vps1.elischer.org", Issuer "CA Cert Signing Authority" (not verified)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 52187EA2 for ; Sat, 1 Oct 2016 02:35:47 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from julian@freebsd.org) Received: from julian-mbp3.pixel8networks.com (50-196-156-133-static.hfc.comcastbusiness.net [50.196.156.133]) (authenticated bits=0) by vps1.elischer.org (8.15.2/8.15.2) with ESMTPSA id u912ZarH028379 (version=TLSv1.2 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA bits=128 verify=NO) for ; Fri, 30 Sep 2016 19:35:38 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from julian@freebsd.org) To: "ports@FreeBSD.org" From: Julian Elischer Subject: dependency explosions Message-ID: <2df71272-7b98-ad73-650a-3ec70beb71d5@freebsd.org> Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 19:35:31 -0700 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.11; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/45.3.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-BeenThere: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting software to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 01 Oct 2016 02:35:47 -0000 Hi ports people. It seems to me that there has been an explosion in ports dependencies recently. Things that used to need a few dependencies are now pulling in things one would never imagine. We just had to add the openjdk7 port to something and the number of dependencies is at 120 and rising still. (mostly due to an *undocumented* dependency on a cups include file). I needed to add glib2 and I got over 20 dependencies. (and then it failed to compile). 12 ports I've been adding to my systems for years have now resulted in 135 unexpected ports being built. Some issues I've noted: There is a need for a "minimum" install of a lot of packages. Such a 'minimum' install should probably be the default when coming in as a dependency, as there is an increasing tendency to configure things with all the bells and whistles. anyone have any thought as to 1/ why the recent explosion, and 2/ what to do about it?