>On Thu, 16 May 2013 12:37:21 -0400 >alex lupu <alup...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Am 16.5.2013 03:03, schrieb Stefan & Rebekka Wetter: > > I wonder, why these patches are needed? > > Are the upstream-sources not able to be compiled without? > > Good questions (as they say). While trying to stay on topic, > I'll take the liberty and rephrase them to > Why are patches needed at all? > for my post and try to answer/comment. > > First, I agree with the previous respondents (patches are just needed, > some address the unique(?) configurations of (B)LFS, what would the > world be without them, just live with them etc.) > > Now that so many celebrities have come out on this, I've decided > to finally break my own silence on this subject that had been > obsessing me for years. I'll use a particular example but it's more > general (and possibly ugly, cover-up, sloppiness?, etc.) in nature. > For me, it all started on a dark and stormy night, while trying to > compile GTK+ 2.22.0 and failing. It culminated in > Bug 631910 of 2010-10-11: > https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=631910 (for the curious) > > In case you're there, please observe (and absorb) the Comment #1 > (and only) which quickly closed this "non" issue. > True or incompetence or cover-up, etc.? I've obsessed on this ever > since. > > [snip] > > I'd like to thank the issuers (husband and wife?) of and commentators > on this thread. You really helped me lift a heavy burden off my > chest, a burden I had to keep inside for so many years. > > Still obsessed and puzzled (evidently), but at peace with myself now, > -- Alex
This appears to be a case of the developer having a sprawling system, full of various bells and wistles and simply not detecting that that particular make rule (or some other in the dependency chain) depends on something that he has, but people with sleakier system (such as you or me) don't have. I see this all the time with gtkdoc. Gtkdoc is some package which is used to generate documentation. I don't have because I don't need it. I also believe that having it is not and should not be necceasary. But the developers of just about anything have it and use it. Now, this is not something that you will see if you use releases but I am trying to use repository tarbals for everything which means I have to generate the configure. And the scripts and code which do that assume that gtkdoc is present. So every time I wish to do that, I have to hack the pre-configure files and remove all traces of gtkdoc. I just went back to analyze the bug report and your fix that you reported in the mail, and the only logical explanation is that your (or any LFS') copy of db2html did something different than the developers copy of db2html. If db2html is generated during the build procedure (and it is apparently, since I seem to not have it my $PATH), then this may be much more convoluted than just a simple version mismatch. Bottom line: this is probably because you don't have something that the developer has. Now, what that is is a much bigger question than is really worth figuring out, especially since there is already a fix. -- You don't need an AI for a robot uprising. Humans will do just fine. --Skynet -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-support FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page