Packaging third-party applications (Was: Meta Toolchain Release (2008 May))

Werner Almesberger werner at openmoko.org
Wed Jun 4 09:54:14 CEST 2008


Andy Green wrote:
> Hi yourself... I guess you must have started using Openmoko build system
> then because last time we spoke about it you were avoiding it same as me
> - -- for the same reasons.

I think you misunderstood me there - I wasn't referring to myself when
I mentioned the angelic patience :-)  (*)

For me, bitbake is a great tool for distribution makers. I say that it's
a great tool for them because they seem to be happy with it. When they're
happy and make happy little pre-compiled packages for me, I'm happy as
well. And I'm even happier if I never ever have to touch bitbake ;-)

(*) If you must know, I was thinking of Raster. Although the deprecations
    he uttered on IRC while struggling to use bitbake as a twisted
    substitute for make seemed somewhat less angelic (-:C

> What you should have said is: ''Also, having a toolchain that makes it
> easy to cross-build from PACKAGES will help a lot towards people not
> even wanting to BUILD STUFF THAT IS ALREADY BUILT AND USABLE.''

What I mean is that, with a good and extensible toolchain, you can
pick some Openmoko-agnostic package and build it from sources without
pain.

Yes, if the package has already been properly openembeddified and is
part of someone's build process, sure, you can just grab the binary.
But often enough, you'll find that this hasn't happened yet, and you
probably want to try it out before lobbying its addition to the
daily build.

Similarly, if it's work in progress, you often don't want to wait for
the daily build. And neither do you want to run your own OE build just
to get that package (unless you're blessed with the aforementioned
angelic patience).

- Werner



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