On Tuesday, April 26, 2022 at 10:26:59 AM UTC-7 Nils Bruin wrote: > If we're going to allow for/promote packaging as an easy way to get access > to sage, I think we need to reevaluate how we provide optional packages as > well. Currently, our optional packages are basically *build time* optional > (their inclusion or exclusion can lead to changes how other modules > operate, for instance). That means in a packaged environment, they are > optional *for the packager*, not for the user. >
The old idea of providing a binary and then offering optional packages via compilation from source was fundamentally flawed. Setting up the build environment is the hard part, and asking the users who opted for the binary to do so is just inviting trouble. Marc Culler's macOS binary packaging gets it right -- he just builds all optional packages that happen to build without errors and includes them in the binary package. It does not increase the overall size by much. In distribution packaging (debian, conda, ...), optional packages are just ... packages, and no specific Sage infrastructure for that is needed. In addition, we do already have a mechanism to advise users which distribution package they need to install with their distribution's package manager. See https://wiki.sagemath.org/ReleaseTours/sage-9.2#System_package_information_for_optional_packages_at_runtime -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-devel" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sage-devel/7c9d4b6b-b868-40cb-88c9-6a2639485b61n%40googlegroups.com.
