Re: Pkgsrc unusable on lots of platforms now

[Greg Troxel <gdt%lexort.com@localhost>]

Martin Husemann <martin%duskware.de@localhost> writes:

> On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 12:30:41PM -0500, Ian D. Leroux wrote:
>> Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there is such a thing
>> as a global option in the sense you seem to be assuming.
>
> It is just a matter of "namespace" - agree on the same name globally
> and use it with the same effect. Basically: add an entry to
> mk/defaults/options.description.

Agreed - we do sort of have global options, by convention.

>> option in their options.mk to make that dependency optional. Doing
>> the same for policykit means finding all the packages that
>> currently depend on policykit and adding a "policykit" option to
>> each of them. That's certainly possible, someone just has to care
>> enough about it to do the work.
>
> Yeah, exactly what I mean, but it could be done on "incrementally".
>
> The other more serious question though is: do we *ever* want a pkg in
> the security category that uses a non supported, outdated since ~10
> years JavaScript engine.
>
> I'd say: no (and actually would not trust *that* upstream ever again).
> We should downgrade polkit to a non-JS enabled version ASAP!

I'm unclear on polkit, but in general for dependencies we should ask why
we have them and what bad thing happens if we don't, and try to be
minimal.  But it's often harder than I make it sound...