I think this not a new issue, but I am visiting some QA hosts I have not used
for some time.
I just tried to build new packages on Debian and the build aborted because
libqt4-dev is not installed.
To fix this involves installing between 50 and 100 new packages (different
results on different systems) and does not work at all on some debian-based
platforms because the repos don't seem to hold consistent versions of all of
the required packages.
Now this is not our problem per se, but I think there is a basic philosophical
issue we need to sort out ...
I believe these are important principles:
1. Backwards compatibility is really important ... we cannot afford to move PCP
to a place where it only works on the latest and greatest bits-n-pieces.
Client-server considerations (split and lagging upgrades) and SOE rules mean we
need to not only work in down-rev run time environments, but we have to able to
rebuilt the latest PCP on older platforms.
2. If we are to improve the penetration of PCP, we should always make decisions
that expedite server installation, even if this means some reduction in desktop
functionality ... in PCP nirvana, the ratio of server:desktop installs is
likely to be 100:1 or greater.
So, I think the build should be really tolerant of missing pre-requisites that
do not compromise the core server builds ... I'd put the development package
for libqt4 squarely in this camp.
And QA should be really tolerant of PCP functionality that is not built or not
enabled or not installed on a particular host. We already do a pretty good job
here.
In the case of development package for libqt4, the Debian-like builds seem to
be the only ones that mandate this as a build prerequisite, so I am proposing
to remove this mandate.
I will be on the lookout for other similar candidates as I move through the QA
minefield, but would welcome comments in the mean time.
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