Re: pkg/43067 (devel/p5-Date-Manip causes make core dump on NetBSD 4.0 (+FIX))

[Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR pkg/43067; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>
To: gnats-bugs%NetBSD.org@localhost
Cc: 
Subject: Re: pkg/43067 (devel/p5-Date-Manip causes make core dump on NetBSD 4.0 
(+FIX))
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2011 02:24:09 +0700

     Date:        Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:46:41 +0000 (UTC)
     From:        shattered%NetBSD.org@localhost
     Message-ID:  <20110913174641.80E2863BBA9%www.NetBSD.org@localhost>
 
   | That bug was fixed and was pulled up to netbsd-4 branch, IIRC.
 
 It isn't possible to fix pkgsrc problems by changing NetBSD - we wouldn't
 attempt that with Solaris, or Darwin, or Linux -- just because the pkgsrc
 developers happen to be able to fix bugs in NetBSD doesn't make that the 
 solution.
 
 That isn't to say that the bugs shouldn't be fixed of course, so the make
 bug fix, and pullup, is all good stuff - but pkgsrc cannot rely upon that.
 I build against NetBSD 4.0 release, not the netbsd-4 branch, and one thing
 that can never happen is that the release gets fixed (it is already burned
 on cdrom/dvd and nothing in it is ever going to change.)
 
 Even if there were some argument that users must upgrade, you cannot ask them
 to upgrade to some development version, only released versions, and the fix
 for this problem is not in any released NetBSD 4.*, and since it seems
 incredibly unlikely that there will ever be any new releases in the
 NetBSD 4 series, this will probably remain true forever.
 
 Of course, eventually, pkgsrc support for NetBSD 4 will be dropped, and
 at that point, this PR can close if that's what you want to do, but that
 time has not happened yet, NetBSD 4 is still supposed to be supported.
 
 Even when support for NetBSD 4 is dropped, and this PR becomes irrelevant,
 the change proposed in PR 42704 (which the fix in this PR depends upon) is
 still (IMO) a good idea, as the underlying problem, of older versions of
 important software (and for pkgsrc, make is obviously that) will always exist
 in whatever are the older versions of NetBSD being supported, which means
 that without some way to use a newer version of make (like pkgsrc has for gcc,
 the pkg_tools, etc) than is in the base system, then nothing in pkgsrc
 can ever use new features or avoid old bugs (like the one that causes the
 problem here.)
 
 kre