[pacman-dev] [PATCH] RFC: remove upx and optipng support from makepkg

[Ashley Whetter]

On Fri, 12 Feb 2016 21:15:24 +1000, Allan McRae <allan at archlinux.org> wrote:

> On 03/02/16 07:51, Allan McRae wrote:
> > On 03/02/16 00:18, Florian Pritz wrote:
> >> On 02.02.2016 02:44, Allan McRae wrote:
> >>> These options were added before libmakepkg allowed passes like this to be
> >>> dropped in.  I prefer only real core packaging tasks to be included in
> >>> makepkg and additional things like this to be dropped in by a user or
> >>> distribution that wants to support them.
> >>
> >> The linux folks want as many modules in their tree as possible so that
> >> they can improve/change the interfaces between the core and the modules
> >> easily and without breaking third-party modules. I also have the feeling
> >> that any time I see software supporting plugins, these plugins are more
> >> often than not in bad shape, especially when they are maintained by a
> >> third party.
> > 
> > Linux wants to make sure everything boots and functions out of the box.
> >  I don't want to make makepkg achieve every possible packaging pass.  I
> > have already rejected a request to add SVG optimization (and something
> > else I can not remember...).
> > 
> >> These two modules seem to be really small and should not require much
> >> maintenance. Considering the points mentioned above I'd suggest to keep
> >> them.
> > 
> > I consider these modules unmaintained - I will not fix any bug in them
> > (e.g. we can not use either with a clean chroot) and no-one else really
> > works on makepkg...
> > 
> 
> Was there any other opinion on these?
> 
> Allan

I'll throw in my 2 cents.

I agree that it's not worth trying to optimize the package in every way possible. If the packager or the user really cares about space that much then they'll do the compressing themselves.

Thinking on it as more of a packager, I've only ever noticed upx when it's been a problem. Space is so cheap that I'm willing to give a tiny bit of it up if it means that I don't have to deal with worrying about whether or not the option is going to cause problems on other people's machines.

So yes they are tiny modules but if we aren't really going to support them and they aren't providing much benefit then I say remove them.

With respect to the patch, we'll need to remove those options from the PKGBUILD man page as well. A quick "grep -r" shows upx in makepkg.conf and it's man page also, as well as in makepkg.sh.in.

Ashley