Subject: Re: [2006Q3][swi-prolog-lite] Cannot find -lgmp
To: pkgsrc users list <pkgsrc-users@netbsd.org>
From: Christian Biere <christianbiere@gmx.de>
List: pkgsrc-users
Date: 10/22/2006 17:02:27
Nico, Ryoko et Anna wrote:
> I'd like to ask: what is the reason for not using GMP nor multithreading 
> in the swi-prolog-lite package ? Do they trigger bugs in SWI Prolog, or 
> does SWI Prolog trigger bugs in them ? I have been on the SWI Prolog 
> site but did not find bug reports related to using SWI Prolog on NetBSD.

I would not assume any specific reason as long as there's no comment
in the Makefiles or the package description. Most likely whoever created
the package didn't notice this as the build went fine or assumed there's
no significant advantage in enabling these features. The people who create
packages are not necessarily frequent users of it or use them at all.
 
> Or is there some policy for pkgsrc to try and keep packages dependencies 
> under a certain level, which could explain the situation ?

> Would it be 
> possible to use some package specific options to allow conditional 
> support for enhancements to these packages ?

Yes, that's possible but with respect to gmp I don't see any reason to
exclude it assuming that using gmp is of advantage. Multi-threading can
actually be problematic because it's implemented very differently on
each and every system but usually only tested on a few. However, as said,
if there's no written note I would not assume the feature was disabled
on purpose.

-- 
Christian