+x11, and +quartz variants (or a dangerous idea)

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Nov 30, 2007, at 05:10, Randall Wood wrote:

> I would like to suggest that the variants +quartz and +x11 should  
> be supported where relevant, eliminating the use of the +no_x11  
> variant:
>
>
> +quartz	Enable building the port to render graphics using the  
> quartz engine and aqua user interface
> +x11	Enable building the port to use X11
>
>
> Furthermore, I would like to suggest that these variants should  
> never be default variants and that we should modify the macports  
> base to recognize that a port has these variants and if neither is  
> selected (either at the command line or in variants.conf) that an  
> error message should be displayed explaining that the port may be  
> installed with either: +quartz, +x11, or +quartz+x11, although some  
> ports may result in unpredicatable behavior if +quartz+x11 is used.
>
>
> Furthermore, I would like to suggest that the +no_x11 variant and  
> the +no_quartz (if it is used at all) variants should be actively  
> discouraged.



I wouldn't make this generalization. There are ports, like  
ImageMagick, that have a +no_x11 variant, which I believe should  
continue to have them. ImageMagick can build with support for some  
X11 things, or not. By default, we want to build the most featureful  
software possible, so X11 support is on by default. Users who do not  
wish this support can use the +no_x11 variant. I'm not aware of any  
Quartz support in ImageMagick.

Unless you would like to redefine our default installation goals to  
no longer be "most featureful" but instead be "most featureful  
excluding X11 things". I'm not saying we should or should not  
redefine this, just point out what our current status is, and that  
you seem to be proposing a change to that.

Actually, I guess our current guidelines are to build a port to be  
the most featureful while not including huge libraries as  
dependencies which most users won't want. Thus far, I think we've had  
an unspoken agreement that the X11 features are useful, and indeed  
our installation docs require the user to install X11 and the X11SDK.  
I guess you're proposing a change to that as well.