[M3devel] multiarch

[hendrik at topoi.pooq.com]

On Sat, Jul 04, 2009 at 05:24:24PM +0000, Jay wrote:
> 
> My point about source builds was more to reflect the seeming "OpenBSD 
> way" (Gentoo, SourceMage, etc.), not necessarily what is or should be 
> the Modula-3 way. There's a real dilemna between the two options of 
> binary packages and source builds. They each have 
> advantages/disadvantages.

One of the differences is that with a binary package, if we fix a big in 
the compiler package that might affect object code, it is necessary to 
produce new versions of all the packages that were compiled with it.

If we have source packages, the package manager will have to discover 
that recompilation is necessary.

And if we send source packages masquerading as binary packages (via 
post-install scripts or some such) we have to rerelease identical 
packages with a new version number, just to ensure recompilation.

It seems that the thing to do is build packages that match the target 
system's predilections.  If there are too many target systems, we'll 
have to do is our way and ignore the target system's 
conventions.

Or maybe provide special packagings for a few important platforms.  I 
gather that Windows is such a system.  And I'm hoping Debian is.

In any case, the compiler itself will have to be a binary package, 
because of bootstrapping.

I think this discussion is starting to belabor the obvious.  Is it 
useful to go on?  I started this thread merely to report that others are 
starting to deal with multiarchitecture issues, and we might as well be 
aware of what they're doing.

-- hendrik