Re: pkg/54695 (MLDonkey Does Not Build)

[Jaap Boender <jaapb%kerguelen.org@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR pkg/54695; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Jaap Boender <jaapb%kerguelen.org@localhost>
To: gnats-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost
Cc: 
Subject: Re: pkg/54695 (MLDonkey Does Not Build)
Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2020 09:26:28 +0100

 Not having read the original post thoroughly (apologies for that), I had 
 a look at updating mldonkey to the version from ygrek's GitHub 
 repository, and then I ran into a problem the OP already mentioned: 
 mldonkey needs Camlp4.
 
 Camlp4 is considered obsolete; upstream reluctantly made it available 
 with 4.08, while making it VERY clear that there would not be an update 
 for 4.09 (or any future version of OCaml). So yes, mldonkey needs to be 
 updated to either use camlp5 or PPX. Neither of those things is likely 
 to be easy (camlp5 would be my bet for the easiest update, but that 
 would still need a moderate amount of nontrivial work).
 
 At this point, there basically are three options:
 
 1) Take charge of mldonkey upstream and get it in sync with the times 
 (even previous updates, like the unsafe-string patches have been quick 
 fixes rather than thorough overhauls, so this is likely to be 
 time-consuming; great way to learn OCaml, though...)
 
 2) I'm not a fan, but at this point using opam might be an option - it 
 does have provision for keeping old versions of OCaml around and will 
 allow you to use mldonkey without too much hassle. No idea how well it 
 will play with pkgsrc, though, especially if you're using other OCaml 
 packages. (This is not likely to be a viable long term solution: 
 eventually mldonkey will stop working under opam too!)
 
 3) Either keep a local copy of OCaml 4.08 around, as coypu suggests, or 
 use the local-download-solution that the OP suggests. Neither of these 
 will win any beauty prizes, but it's probably the only way to actually 
 get a pkgsrc-compiled version of mldonkey. (Needless to say, this not 
 really a viable long term solution either)
 
  From a pkgsrc point of view, we may need to start thinking about 
 removing mldonkey entirely - upstream obviously hasn't been paying 
 attention for a while now, and unless the situation changes it's not 
 going to build any time soon. But that's a discussion for pkgsrc-users@.