Re: contrib

On 1/9/2016 4:03 AM, waterlan wrote:
> Keith Marshall schreef op 2016-01-08 22:22:
>> On 08/01/16 06:58, waterlan wrote:
>>> I was thinking, perhaps it's even better to move all the contrib
>>> packages to mingw32. Only mingw32 and msys need to remain.
>>
>> No; we segregated them for any one of a number of reasons[*], and I
>> don't see why these should be any less valid today.  I prefer to keep a
>> separate delivery infrastructure for these packages.
>>
>> [*] Off the top of my head:
>>
>> 1) They are of lesser importance to the project, than those in mingw32
> 
> You should not underestimate the importance. It's very convenient for 
> users to have ready-to-use libraries at hand. Extra libraries make the 
> whole project more attractive. Porting a library can be difficult and 
> very time consuming.
> 
>>    and msys; (actually, it isn't likely that we would adopt contributed
>>    MSYS packages anyway, since they could violate the minimalist goal).
> 
> Too minimalistic is also not good, this will make people go away.
> 
>> 2) There was some concern that contributors might walk away, and not
>>    continue to maintain their contributions; (this in no way implies
>>    that *you* would do so, but I contributed Xerces-C because we needed
>>    it for mingw-dist's XML validation tool.  The version I provided is
>>    still perfectly adequate for that purpose, and I have no incentive
>>    beyond that, to keep abreast of upstream updates).
> 
> Main maintainers can also walk away. People walking away should not 
> influence the package structure.
> 
>> 3) There is a possibility that we could choose to aggregate contributed
>>    packages into a separate delivery channel; keeping them separate at
>>    the outset makes it easier to accomplish that later.
> 
> That is adding complexity. I would rather keep it simple.

It was discussed years ago on this list so the archives can be reviewed.
 If I recall correctly the contrib directory was intended to provide a
place for those applications that were built with MinGW but not
pertinent to the functioning of MinGW.  We decided to also use this
directory for any package that someone wanted to contribute.  The
installation mechanism we now have may or may not cause that need to be
revisited but I'm of the opinion that it should remain to help isolate
those packages that are not pertinent to the functioning of MinGW.

MSYS was never meant to become a Cygwin and therefore we discouraged
contributions of packages that required MSYS.  The only reason for a
package to be added to MSYS is if it is needed to do ./configure and
make.  Some packages are needed because of the embedded POSIx paths
created automatically in files.  For instance we needed perl as an MSYS
package because of autoconf's usage of it.

-- 
Earnie

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Site24x7 APM Insight: Get Deep Visibility into Application Performance
APM + Mobile APM + RUM: Monitor 3 App instances at just $35/Month
Monitor end-to-end web transactions and take corrective actions now
Troubleshoot faster and improve end-user experience. Signup Now!
http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=267308311&iu=/4140