On Dec 30, 2017, at 20:27, Bill Cole wrote: > On 15 Dec 2017, at 18:00 (-0500), Bill Cole wrote: > >> In regards to https://trac.macports.org/ticket/55208 : > [...] >> Why would help2man demand the absolute latest Perl? Well, because the >> Portfile says it does. However, in the real world, help2man is happy with >> any perl since 5.8. >> >> Doing a 'port -y upgrade outdated' reveals that multiple ports are >> threatening to demand perl5.26 if I try to upgrade them, like whois!? >> Because it needs perl to build??? >> >> This is insanity. > > Well, I've managed to find an answer, after a fashion. It's pursuant to > https://trac.macports.org/ticket/50512 which seems to indicate a consensus > among those who were paying attention that fewer versions is better, with > some people on the side of One True Perl and others suggesting alignment with > the upstream policy of maintaining 2 major versions. It seems like both > approaches are being followed, with some ports retaining the option of using > 5.24 or 5.26 and others going to 5.26-only. > > If anyone involved in making MacPorts policy can explain this coherently, I'd > greatly appreciate it.
What other explanation would you like? Now that perl5.26 is stable, we would like all ports that require a specific version of perl (e.g. because they require perl modules) to require perl5.26.
