flags for base's configure script: should there be more or fewer? (was "Fwd: [MacPorts] #42756: macports doesn't compile with bundled tcl")

[Lawrence Velázquez]

On Mar 7, 2014, at 5:06 PM, Eric Gallager <egall at gwmail.gwu.edu> wrote:

> libtasn1 is not actually something that gnutls maintains themselves, they only vendor it in as a convenience. Bringing it back to MacPorts, the copy of Tcl that is vendored in is more like libtasn1 in gnutls, in that MacPorts only vendors it in as a convenience

This is a specious comparison. We are NOT packaging Tcl as a fallback; we're enforcing a specific configuration to ease MacPorts development. We don't particularly want to support users choosing their own preferred Tcl, and I don't see how doing so would benefit us (or them, frankly).

As Josh intimated, "batteries included" is MacPorts' general philosophy. Our loose goal is to provide only as much choice as makes sense. The desire to provide "freedom" to end-users must be balanced with the fact that the complexity of the system grows exponentially with each additional option, making maintenance and support that much more difficult.

If someone wants to customize their software in a way that we don't support, they're entirely free to build it by hand, or to maintain a local ports tree, or to do anything at all.

>>> larryv at least has already come out as deletionist, but what about the rest of you?
>> 
>> Name calling really doesn't help your case.
> 
> The label "deletionist" isn't name-calling, it's an accurate term for a philosophical position that people can have towards content in community-based software projects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletionism_and_inclusionism_in_Wikipedia
> Many people apply the label to themselves voluntarily. Sorry for any offense caused by my using it, I just assumed that people were familiar with the term...

Having spent much of the last 9 years contributing to the English Wikipedia — first as a regular user, then as an administrator — I am *quite* familiar with those terms. They have rather negative connotations. Labeling someone "inclusionist" or "deletionist" is rather like labeling someone a "peacenik" or a "warmonger": You might be correct in a denotational sense, but you're also (strongly) implying that their position should be dismissed out of hand because it is illogical and driven by zealotry.

vq