Re: XFree86 modularization

On Fri, May 09, 2003 at 05:02:34PM +0200, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
>On Fri, May 09, 2003 at 10:43:13AM -0400, David Dawes wrote:
>> Most of this is irrelevant to the Linux target audience.  That doesn't
>> mean that it is irrelevant to XFree86's audience.
>> 
>> As for the argument about having multiple versions of things like freetype
>> installed, XFree86 can be configured to build and use externally supplied
>> version of externally maintained dependencies like freetype, so that is
>> really a non-issue.  The approach XFree86 has taken on this provides
>> workable solutions for all of its user base, not just today's largest
>> subset.
>
>Agin, why do they need to be part of the XFree tree?  That just leads

You cut out the reasons I gave for why the bar for external
dependencies is set in this way for XFree86.  The licensing issue,
for example, is not an insignificant one, and that bar is automatically
set higher when an external dependency has to be included in the
XFree86 source tree.

>to this horrible confusion.  Having tarballs of known-good version on
>the XFree ftp server is like a much, much better approach.  This will
>give people who want it those versions but avoid the problem of
>using them accidentally.

Some of us feel that having a simple, complete and integrated build
process is important.  Addressing the well-known build-time
configuration inadequacies would be a better solution in my opinion,
and would have broader benefit than just this specific class of issue.

Maybe in the end it's just the philosophical difference between
those who prefer, say, the FreeBSD approach vs the typical Linux
approach.  I can go to freebsd.org, check out the FreeBSD CVS, and
build a complete and well-integrated system from a single command
line.

David
-- 
David Dawes
Founder/committer/developer                     The XFree86 Project
www.XFree86.org/~dawes