Release Wranglers Call - 5th March 2003

[Kaleb S. KEITHLEY]

Keith Packard wrote:
> Around 12 o'clock on Mar 5, "Kaleb S. KEITHLEY" wrote:
> 
> 
>>And to the extent we need freetype---  There are lots of systems, e.g. 
>>Solaris, AIX, FreeBSD, etc., that don't have expat on them.
> 
> 
> The question is whether we require these external packages to be installed 
> before building X.  Some software (mozilla) includes this kind of 
> non-pervasive external dependency, other software (gnome, kde) do not.

Yes, I'm sure we all knew what the question was.

> 
> The problem is that 'imake' doesn't detect the lack of these libraries until 
> late in the build process, which is something of a user trap.  I suggested 
> that perhaps we could eliminate the external dependency sources and hack 
> up the 'make World' pieces to check for them before starting the build.  
> But, others suggested that we just leave well enough alone for now. Given 
> the desire for a rapid release which is as close to XFree86 4.4 as we can 
> reasonably manage, I think that's probably the wisest course.

Either leave it as is, or update to the latest-and-greatest, if updating 
is low risk.

Breaking things that used to work is a Bad Thing. The X tree has 
historically been self contained, i.e. to build it you didn't have to go 
get other things first. If everyone agrees that this is no longer 
necessary, that's fine; but I'm not sure I'm hearing everyone say that 
it's okay.

We seem to be running pell mell to make a relesase. You say there's a 
desire for a quick release, but who exactly desires this? I only hear 
JimAndKeith saying this. Yes Senator McCarthy, I want to see that list 
in your briefcase.

--

Kaleb