On 14.08.2010 03:46, Xyne wrote:
I didn't modularize this package because upstream doesn't intend to modularize it, and because of the amount of work that would require, not only to split everything off, but to make sure nothing breaks at the same time. Case in point, http://github.com/cschwan/sage-on-gentoo
I would like to start discussing its inclusion now. Considering Sage's popularity, both on the AUR (160 votes for the source version, 130 votes for the binary version) and in general, along with how long it takes to compile, I definitely think this should be included in [community].
I fully agree with the sentiments regarding duplication of packages, but that is an upstream issue and unavoidable without a very heavy-hands-on approach to the package, as already mentioned. The package itself though is more than just a mesh of its components and thus provides a real utility despite the underlying duplication.
In the absence of an upstream willingness to modularize the components, the next best approach would be to have the package "provide" as many of its components as possible (if any) to enable users to avoid redundant packages on their own system. This would offset the cost of the duplication and reduce user-mirror bandwidth and user diskspace. The cost of the extra bits on the mirrors themselves is unfortunate but far from critical.
I would also support tweaking the PKGBUILD or applying relatively simple patches if it would expose more of the components to the system in such a way that they could be counted as "provides"
So +1 for its inclusion from me.
Regards, Xyne
If I have understood your correctly, you want sage to provide python and all its other components as if they were vanilla? I have no experience at all with sage but your idea sounds like it would invite a lot of very hard to debug breakage. From my understanding, the duplicated packages that sage would provide are heavily modified. How can you expect them to behave like their vanilla versions without extensive testing? If a problem is unlikely to occur then go for it. However, the thought of making sage provide python alone would be rather scary (and unflexible). I'd just bite the bullet and include sage in all its glory and self-containment and leave the system packages in piece. -- Sven-Hendrik