From owner-developers@FreeBSD.org Wed May 1 14:38:35 2002 Return-Path: Delivered-To: peter@localhost.wemm.org Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by overcee.wemm.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0F96B38FD for ; Wed, 1 May 2002 14:38:35 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-developers@FreeBSD.org) Received: from mail.wemm.org by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.0.3) for peter@localhost (single-drop); Wed, 01 May 2002 14:38:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: by fw.wemm.org (mbox peter) (with Cubic Circle's cucipop (v1.31 1998/05/13) Wed May 1 14:38:35 2002) X-From_: owner-developers@FreeBSD.org Wed May 1 14:36:52 2002 Received: from canning.wemm.org (postfix@canning.wemm.org [192.203.228.65]) by fw.wemm.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g41Laq402449 for ; Wed, 1 May 2002 14:36:52 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-developers@FreeBSD.org) Received: from mx2.freebsd.org (mx2.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.119]) by canning.wemm.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 062D02A7DD for ; Wed, 1 May 2002 14:36:52 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-developers@FreeBSD.org) Received: from hub.freebsd.org (hub.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.18]) by mx2.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DD7F555F15 for ; Wed, 1 May 2002 14:36:51 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-developers@FreeBSD.org) Received: by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) id B826E37B421; Wed, 1 May 2002 14:36:51 -0700 (PDT) Delivered-To: peter@freebsd.org Received: by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix, from userid 538) id 797C137B400; Wed, 1 May 2002 14:36:37 -0700 (PDT) Delivered-To: developers@freebsd.org Received: from fw.wemm.org (12-232-135-171.client.attbi.com [12.232.135.171]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 349FF37B41C for ; Wed, 1 May 2002 14:36:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from overcee.wemm.org (overcee.wemm.org [10.0.0.3]) by fw.wemm.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g41LaT402437 for ; Wed, 1 May 2002 14:36:29 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from peter@wemm.org) Received: from wemm.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by overcee.wemm.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8AD8638CC; Wed, 1 May 2002 14:36:29 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from peter@wemm.org) X-Mailer: exmh version 2.5 07/13/2001 with nmh-1.0.4 To: developers@FreeBSD.org Cc: Paul Richards Subject: Re: Removing perl from the tree In-Reply-To: <20020501131111.A43624@hub.freebsd.org> Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 14:36:29 -0700 From: Peter Wemm Message-Id: <20020501213629.8AD8638CC@overcee.wemm.org> Sender: owner-developers@FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG "David O'Brien" wrote: > On Wed, May 01, 2002 at 06:28:32PM +0100, Paul Richards wrote: > > Probably not, there's no reason why we should either, as long as we > > distribute a Perl that's fully integrated with the base distribution. > ... > > I haven't heard any good reasons for dropping Perl from the OS and I > > don't think it's a direction we should go in. > > Its build is way too fragile, and causes frustration and lost developer > time due to the breakage. Yes. > > I agree. The fact that it's difficult to bmake is not a reason to drop > > Perl from our tree, anymore than it would be for gcc. > > Perl is so little used in building our OS, we can't do jack w/o a C > compiler. That is a world of difference. Yes. > > What we need to > > discuss is how to solve the build problem, rather than how to drop Perl > > completely. > > So what is your suggestion?? Here's what I think we should do: 1) finish removing perl dependencies from the *build*. This may mean checking in the generated openssl i586_md5.S etc file, but that's quite acceptable. I am *not* talking about removing perl scripts (adduser/rmuser etc) 1.5) Optionally rewrite adduser/rmuser as shell script front ends to the pw(8) command. 2) Change our base system perl scripts to do this: #! /usr/bin/env perl This makes it search $PATH for perl. This is a better alternative than changing them to hard code /usr/local/bin/perl. The problem is that it doesn't provide a useful error message, so other obvious alternative is to provide a "#! /usr/bin/runperl" wrapper that execs the real perl if it is installed, or prints an informatibe message about either installing the perl port or "pkg_add -r perl". 3) completely remove perl from src/contrib/perl5 and gnu/usr.bin/perl 4) End the blasted bikeshedding over perl in the base. Start sleeping easier at night. Enjoy world peace. IMHO, we should *not* have a partial perl in the system. It's either an all or nothing deal IMHO. Dont mess with hybrid half-breeds. Yes we can do it, but we dont *need* to do it given that we have a very effective distribution mechanism. Cheers, -Peter -- Peter Wemm - peter@wemm.org; peter@FreeBSD.org; peter@yahoo-inc.com "All of this is for nothing if we don't go to the stars" - JMS/B5