[MPlayer-users] Configure script is not portable

[The Wanderer]

On 05/01/2009 11:58 AM, vext01 at gmail.com wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 08:00:52PM -0400, The Wanderer wrote:
> 
>> Edd Barrett wrote:
>> 
>>> ---8<---
>>> blade% uname -a
>>> SunOS blade 5.10 Generic_137137-09 sun4u sparc SUNW,Sun-Blade-1000
>>> blade% ./configure
>>> ./configure: LC_ALL=C: is not an identifier
>>> ---8<---
>>
>> This has been specifically mentioned on the development list as
>> being a result of the shell not being POSIX-compatible.
> 
> Perhaps, but the aim of autotools is to make sure your software can
> build on any platform right?

MPlayer doesn't use autotools. The developers are philosophically
opposed to it; they think it's a bad idea. I don't remember most of
their arguments offhand, but when I've read them in the past I've tended
to find them persuasive.

>> There are some environments - and I think Solaris may be one of
>> them - where the default toolchain is not POSIX-compatible. The
>> recommended approach in these cases is to add the path(s) to the
>> POSIX-compatible tools to the head of your PATH before running
>> configure.
>> 
>> For what it's worth, I see a number of people in the -dev-eng
>> archives who appear to have built MPlayer successfully on
>> OpenSolaris...
> 
> I did some googling and it looks like people are installing the GNU
> bits and bobs for the mplayer build, so yes, looks like it is
> possible, but I wonder how hard it really is to write portable lowest
> common denominator shell script, so you don't need to install
> additional software.

What constitutes the "lowest common denominator"? How low do you go? How
far do you stretch? How much work do you put in to support outlying edge
cases?

MPlayer's build-system maintainers have made the decision to require
POSIX, as a reasonable minimum to expect any system to provide. Point
them to a widely-accepted standard which has a lower bar than that, and
they might consider switching to that as their target, but I don't think
it very likely.

> Maybe I will look at this some time.
> 
> I see your point with POSIX, but im pretty certain sun won't be
> changing thier grep implementation any time soon.

In my experience, MPlayer's developers tend to consider things like that
a problem on the OS side of the equation, and not something they should
(or should be expected to) provide workarounds for. If the OS won't be
fixed, then its users need to either protest to the OS people or switch
OSes. (Or, as is the more usual solution in this case, just install the
necessary compatible tools on their own.)

> Thanks for getting back to me.

You're quite welcome.

-- 
       The Wanderer

Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.