[89221] trunk/dports/editors/nedit/Portfile

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Jan 23, 2012, at 04:21, Rainer Müller wrote:

> On 01/23/2012 01:38 AM, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
>> 
>> On Jan 21, 2012, at 11:35, raimue at macports.org wrote:
>> 
>>> Revision: 89221
>>>          http://trac.macports.org/changeset/89221
>>> Author:   raimue at macports.org
>>> Date:     2012-01-21 09:34:59 -0800 (Sat, 21 Jan 2012)
>>> Log Message:
>>> -----------
>>> editors/nedit:
>>> Remove platform block as we are always building for darwin.
>> 
>> Not necessarily.
>> 
>> And if I write a patch that is specific to OS X and would cause problems on other OSes, I do strive to put that in a "platform darwin" block to make that clear to anyone else reading the portfile.
> 
> I understand your point, but the Portfile specifies "platforms darwin" and thus, is meant to be for Darwin/Mac OS X only. I know we do not enforce what is given in platforms, but do we really need to care about other target OSes?

No, we don't need to. But if there's a patch that is clearly for OS X only, I feel it belongs in a "platform darwin" block to make that limitation clear to other people who read the port -- which might include people trying to incorporate those patches back into the project's main repository. And to help those who might try to install the port on non-OS X systems, even if we don't specifically support it.

I have so far been willing to incorporate changes to facilitate building on other OSes, when it is not too difficult to do so. Recall that it was just last month that someone was trying to run MacPorts on Ubuntu and filing a lot of tickets as a result:

http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/macports-users/2011-December/026723.html

The "platforms" line of the portfile is purely informational for the user; MacPorts does nothing with that information. Personally I don't find this line of any value at all to anyone; it neither indicates that a port has been tested and works on any of the listed platforms, nor does it indicate that it will not work.

If we don't want MacPorts to be used on non-OS X systems, we should modify the configure script to error out on non-OS X systems. But I would rather not go there. If I were ever to find myself needing to install software on a non-OS X system, I might rather have the comfort and familiarity of MacPorts at my disposal, than have to learn a whole new package manager.