Ticket #14796 (pike): please commit

[Jordan K. Hubbard]

On Apr 1, 2008, at 2:45 AM, Robert Hinn wrote:

> Hm, do you suggest using and linking only to ports? I find the lib:*  
> dependency quite useful as I'm using the official .dmg package of  
> MySQL from the MySQL homepage instead of the mac port (mainly  
> because I've already been using it before installing MacPorts).  
> Allowing such dependencies offers end users more choice in what  
> software "distribution" to use, as long as libraries are correct.
>
> Sorry if I misunderstood you, just wanted to point out that  
> dependencies against non-ports software can make sense for some  
> people ;-)

I'm not going so far as to suggest that dependencies should be limited  
to items in the Depot, and I definitely see the value of being able to  
link with components of the OS which would be painful to duplicate  
(all of X11 comes to mind) or have been specifically optimized so as  
to make them more attractive than the MacPorts-provided ones.  What  
I'm saying is that for the MacPorts-provided dependencies, being able  
to force them into the depot and out of /opt/local would allow a lot  
more things to coexist simultaneously.  As MacPorts grows into a real  
collection (4,622 ports may seem a lot, but it's nothing close to  
FreeBSD's 18,280), this will become a larger and larger problem.   
FreeBSD "solves" it by doing namespace munging for every port that  
conflicts (/usr/local/bin/foo-5.6.2, /usr/lib/libfoo.5.6.2.so, /usr/ 
include/foo-5.6.2 and so on), which is about as much work as forcing  
things into the depot without the benefits of having an "uncluttered" / 
usr/local by default.

- Jordan

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