Re: How to get to dependencies?

["David T. Bath" <bathd edipost auspost com au>]

Suggestions and observations re dependencies:
1. Perhaps all available "rpm spec" files and/or deb equivalents could
   be available as a single tarball somewhere on gnome.org.  This would
   help planning even for non-RPM non-DEB based systems : these files
   are plain text after all.

2. This does *not* address the problem of the "optional" dependencies.
   (These would include the --with-gnome-widgets and --with-bonobo for
   glade).  This *might* be addressable by a tarball of the outputs
   of "./configure --help", but it is getting ugly.

3. It seems to me that "dependencies" is not specific enough, perhaps
   we should have an agreed-upon method of describing dependencies as
   a) Mandatory - must be there or else
   b) Desirable - required for full functionality
   c) Optional - e.g. "--with-included-gettext", where there is no
      major functionality loss as configure might find an alternative
      way of doing the job.
   d) Experimental - purely experimental.

4. I am drawn to considering an RDBMS, particularly Oracle which supports
   a tree-structured query (using the CONNECT BY PRIOR) clause.  Other
   real RDBMS tools might be able to do this.  Imagine a page on gnome.org
   where you select the tool, push the submit button, the dependencies
   are selected from the database and displayed on the returned page.
   Here the option to choose the "level" of dependency (mandatory, ....)
   would be useful.  Any other easy non-Oracle solutions??

5. The whole issue is only going to get trickier, and be a major acceptability
   issue for sites requiring customized builds, especially non-Lintel sites.
   I have mentioned before that one of the major commercial members of
   Gnome foundation could usefully sponsor this.  The maintenance of such
   a database, especially with requirements changing between releases of
   various packages is definitely non-trivial, and it would be wonderful
   if a gnome supporter could show off their managerial and RDBMS design
   skills by designing the database and associated web pages.  The authentication
   of updates by authors is a major issue.

6. Perhaps the problem might be made easier by a special dependencies tracking
   file format (extension, mime time and internal format up for discussion).
   If the dependencies could be reliably described in terms such as Mandatory,
   Desirable, ... (again terms and definitions open for discussion), and
   such files could be downloaded in bulk (I think you might need different
   files for different versions of tools, with versions embedded in filenames),
   then it should not be too difficult to write a tool that grovels through
   them and lists the tools, and preferably the order, required to build the
   final target.

Perhaps discussion of different types of dependencies (para 3) and a preferred
format (para 6) should be moved to gnome-devel.

Happy New Year
Drive Safely
David
-- 
David T. Bath bathd edipost auspost com au
+613 9204 8713 (W) 0418 316 634 (Mbl)

--- Begin Message ---

• From: <jfleck inkstain net>
• To: gnome-list gnome org
• Subject: Re: How to get to dependencies?
• Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 11:40:03 -0800 (PST)

Fernan -

Sorry you are having difficulty. The underlying problem is that, while
Balsa is relatively stable, gtkhtml and gal are still in the "unstable"
branch of the gnome ftp server.

On Fri, 22 Dec 2000, Fernan Aguero wrote:

> I am trying to compile Balsa-1.0.1 with gtkhtml support. 
> I have at hand gtkhtml 0.6.1, and 0.7. 
> 
> When i searched for gtkhtml on rpmfind.net i've learned that this package
> is at ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/unstable/sources/gtkhtml/, however
> there is no gtkhtml-devel package there.
> 

If you build from source you should not need a -devel package.

> 
> On the other hand gtkhtml-0.7 does not configure, because it needs this:
> 
> 'checking for Gnome App libraries (GAL) >= 0.2... configure: error: Did not
> find GnomeAppLib (GAL) installed'
> 

gal is still in the unstable branch of the Gnome ftp server, but helixcode
has released packages: ftp.helixcode.com/distributions

> 
> Now gal-0.4.1 won't configure because my libxml is not supported yet (needs
> 1.8.8 and i have 2.0)
> 

Alas, Gnome programs use the libxml 1.x series - 1.8.10 is the latest
version. Again, helixcode is your friend if you are using rpms.

> ---
> Question now is how does the Gnome Project organizes itself?
> Is there any central repository of libraries, files and packages?
> ---

Yes. Everything you need is at ftp.gnome.org if you want to build from
source. Look in the "stable" branch for the latest stable sources, and the
"unstable" branch for the stuff still in development.

Not to sound too defensive on behalf of my Gnome friends, but you are
building new software that uses stuff out at the pointy end of the 
development spear, where stuff is always more complicated.

Cheers,

John



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