I've been working on an update to the Alien manifesto to clarify some details of implementation that fall in the best usage category. In general, an Alien::XXX module would choose the first applicable option among:
* detect and configure for system XXX if meets the specific requirements for XXX version * ask and install XXX in a local perl prefix directory and configure Alien::XXX for that location ( In the case of a debian package for the My::Use::XXX module the packager could include dependencies for XXX and and Alien::XXX for the My::Use::XXX package. ) --Chris On Fri, Dec 20, 2013 at 9:55 AM, Paul LeoNerd <leon...@leonerd.org.uk> wrote: > On Fri, 20 Dec 2013 09:39:01 -0500 > David Mertens <dcmertens.p...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> The advantage of >> requiring your own Alien-based package on a Debian system is that you >> can target a specific version of libtermkey, which can be different >> from the one provided by Debian. The disadvantage is that Debian may >> have a policy against multiple versions of the same library, or you >> may confuse your Debian users if they install the newest, shiniest >> libtermkey and your Debian-based module doesn't pick it up, because >> it uses its own. > > Hmm? You may have missed a subtlety of my earlier comment. > > The -existing- Alien::libtermkey always compiles and installs its own > locally-bundled source code, and presents that when queried. My > suggestion was to instead alter it so that the Alien wrapping returns > "whatever is required", possibly its own bundled, or possibly an > existing system library, when installed and queried, so that > libtermkey-using distributions can always configure_requires on it, and > know they have /a/ useable libtermkey. > > To clarify: > > At the Perl level: > Tickit -- configure_requires Alien::libtermkey > > Alien::libtermkey -- bundles libtermkey.tar.gz or uses system one > queried by pkg-config > > At the Debian packaging level: > libtickit-perl -- Build-depends: libalien-libtermkey-perl > Depends: libtermkey1 > libalien-libtermkey-perl -- build-depends libtermkey-dev > > I'm not sure I see how that fits with your comment above. > > -- > Paul "LeoNerd" Evans > > leon...@leonerd.org.uk > ICQ# 4135350 | Registered Linux# 179460 > http://www.leonerd.org.uk/
