[ On Friday, April 4, 2003 at 15:45:18 (+0200), Juergen Weigert wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: ncurses and terminfo are broken on Solaris/SunOS (Re: pkg/20881)
>
> The screen termcap entry is a dependency of screen, (of course). 
> And so is the xterm termcap entry a dependency of xterm.

No, absolutely not!  The xterm and screen termcap entries are _NOT_
dependencies of the x11/xterm and misc/screen packages!  In fact they
_MUST_NOT_ be.

The termcap entries are needed _ONLY_ on the hosts where libcurses-based
(NetBSAD libcurses for termcap, devel/ncurses for terminfo) applications
are run.

If I install x11/termcap on machine-A, and editors/nvi on machine-B, and
I only run nvi on machine-B via sessions created using screen on
machine-A then I need an "xterm" termcap entry on machine-B, and _ONLY_
on machine-B.  pkg_add cannot possibly record this dependency!

DO NOT confuse the location of the libcurses-using applications with the
location of the terminal emulators.  DO NO assume that installing a
termcap entry on the machine where the terminal emulator is installed
and run will ever be of any use.

The packages system CANNOT properly, and _MUST_NOT_ ever, record
dependencies between terminal emulators and any termcap or terminfo
descriptions of the capabilities of those emulators!

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098;            <g.a.woods@ieee.org>;           <woods@robohack.ca>
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