"Stephan Aßmus" <superstippi@xxxxxx> wrote: >For what it's worth, I totally agree, that the externalization of >packages has often made things more complicated. I agree that some >software has a tricky build system and depends on certain compiler >flags >to work correctly like for example ffmpeg. It is sometimes error-prone >to replace their build system with Haiku's. Most packages build with no or only small Haiku specific patches. Updating them to a newer version is usually just a matter of rebuilding them. If they are in Haiku's build system you always have to be very careful to do reproduce all changes from the package's build system. That can be tedious and is error prone (e.g. look in bash's history for an example). >Anyway, I think the important thing is the testing. And just because a >package has accepted all Haiku patches at one point doesn't mean there >is no maintainance by Haiku developers necessary anymore. Haiku simply >doesn't get tested going forward. It isn't clear at all whetehr a >future >version of a package even still compiles on Haiku, let alone works >correctly. I don't see how externalizing packages makes things any >easier. Automated builds for the HaikuPorts packages can at least address the compilation problem. The testing issue is one we have either way. > Just look at freetype for example. Now one can't enable >sub-pixel rendering without serious effort. If you think of the users who don't build their own Haiku, the never could do that. The obvious solution will come with package management. There''ll simply be two versions of the freetype package and it will be easy for both end users and developers to choose the one they want. > And what about ICU. Is >everyone involved thinking it made things easier to pull it out of the >tree? Looking from the outside, it seemed like it resulted in a lot of >extra work. I think some of that is due to keeping all the incomplete ports happy. I don't consider that much of a problem. Generally building packages will become easier with better tool support. >I am aware that it may sound like I mean we should put everything into >the Haiku tree and have no external packages at all. I don't think >that's a good idea either, but I specifically wonder about those >build-dependency packages. Keeping them in the tree is a mess IMO. These packages are usually also needed as dependencies of other packages, so we end up having to reproduce their build systems' installation procedure and once we go PM even build packages for them from out of our tree. CU, Ingo