dolfin team mailing list archive

[Faheem Mitha <faheem@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 5 Jul 2005, Matthew Knepley wrote:

> Barry Smith <petsc-maint@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>
>      Now we are into design issues, but I will chance it anyway. I think packages
> without source are silly and pointless. Open source is about having all the source
> for everything, especially in the scientific library regime. I therefore agree
> with the Gentoo philosophy much more than Debian. PETSc is already packaged the
> way I would like it packaged and is designed to work in that mould. I do not believe
> the other models work as well, and exist mostly out of inertia rather than consideration
> of the benefits and drawbacks.

Of course, the source needs to be available etc. That is hardly the issue.

However, I'm talking about compiling library B against library A. In this 
case, the standard Unix model (nothing to do with Debian or Gentoo) is 
that B should not need anything from A except the library files themselves 
(static and/or dynamic) and the header files. Again, this has nothing to 
do with Debian or Gentoo. If you don't believe me, please ask on any 
Debian or Gentoo development list, or anywhere else, for that matter.

The only relevant difference between Gentoo and Debian is that Gentoo 
generally sets things up so that people can easily do recursive builds 
from source, and customize the source as necessary. In Debian it is not so 
easy, but can be done. This has nothing to do with the matter under 
discussion, which is whether one should compile library B against the 
source of library A.

For debugging, one usually compiles the library with debugging symbols.

Please carefully consider the standard models before discarding them, 
since that way lies chaos. If everyone does something different, then 
putting together an operating system becomes an impossibility.

Please also bear in mind space issues, and the fact that (generally) 
inclusion in a OS like Gentoo or Debian ensures wider distribution.

Thanks for your attention.                                 Faheem.