(I realize this specific issue is moot at the moment, but the attitude
behind it is important to me.)
> Then just pass --with-dbm=db1 to the APRUTIL configure. No big
> deal. Chill.
I still think it's a big deal. I don't think it's reasonable for
packages to behave consistently in a multiplatform environment only if
the builder understands issues like this and passes special configure
flags. The builder may be having to deal with a lot of different
packages; there's a reason why the gnu project tries to present a
standard configuration interface for packages.
Also, let's say I build svn for our distributed environment with
--with-dbm=ndbm for consistency, but someone mounts their homedir on
their stock (let's say) Red Hat 10.2 system and uses the native svn
client which was built with db3. They lose, for reasons they
shouldn't ever have to understand. Not all of our users are going to
be programmers, and even the ones who are would generally like their
tools to be robust.
For the wc, we should either restrict ourselves to the lowest common
denominator of functionality, or make the highest common denominator a
hard requirement. Making the wc data format dependent on compile-time
options is a recipe for disaster.
(Especially since we've made a number of design decisions based on the
requirement of being able to take a wc subdirectory, move it from one
place to another and back, and have it still work the whole time.)
Received on Sat Oct 21 14:36:22 2006