Subject: Re: old versions of packages
To: matt debergalis <deberg@MIT.EDU>
From: Miles Nordin <carton@Ivy.NET>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 10/07/1999 01:37:43
On 7 Oct 1999, matt debergalis wrote:

> so, i don't want to break the arena package, but it'd be nice to have an
> up-to-date libwww, and i'm not sure anyone really cares about arena.

I tried to build arena on NetBSD/sparc a few months ago and found it to be
so buggy on both a 1-bit and a 24-bit display as to be laughably useless.
so i agree with you that removing the arena package wouldn't be the end of
the world.  I think arena is more an embarrassment at this point than
anything.

For my vote, I don't want an old libwww around if it's going to make it
more difficult for someone to make an amaya package.  If you could make a
libwww-old package that used a different library name, update arena to use
the different library name when building, and increment the major version
number for your new libwww's library, you might be able to pull this off
without anyone noticing--but, it's a lot of work, and is very dirty and
confusing for the people who would have to use it.  so i don't think it's
an overall win to do something that complicated.  at least, i have no
desire for it myself.

A quick grep reveals that teTeX depends on libwww as well--you might want
to investigate that, as i suspect teTeX is a lot more useful than arena,
and really ought to keep working.

-- 
Miles Nordin / v:1-888-857-2723 fax:+1 530 579-8680
555 Bryant Street PMB 182 / Palo Alto, CA 94301-1700 / US