A small problem with open source

[H_TeXMeX_H]

Recently I've been compiling stuff from source and it's really been a pain ... not because it's hard to do (usually just ./configure; make; make install), but because it only works half the time, and even if it compiles it may or may not work.

Why doesn't it compile ? Usually because there is a bug in the code and/or a bug in the compiler. The newest gcc keeps giving errors about "extra qualifications", and then I have to go in there and fix it myself. But sometimes the source is just completely fucked and it'll take a really long time to fix. (I don't trust myself enough to fix anything too major, after all I haven't written a large C++ program in a while, and I forgot a lot).

Well I guess the only thing to do is push forward, improve gcc error handling, and maybe get program writers to be a little more careful and maybe test the source code for compilability before releasing it !

I dunno, I'm just so fucking sick of fixing code ! So far out of all the source code I downloaded (in C++, usually game related) only half of it has compiled properly without intervention. What about people who don't know enough C or C++ to fix this shit ? They just stick to the binaries like I used to ... and what if there are no binaries ... then you're fucked !

[piratePenguin]

If there are no binaries for a package, yes a noob would be fucked.

But just think, what if the package didn't have the code available in the first place? Then if there's no binaries, everybody, not only the noobs, will be fucked.


Packages which haven't had a release in about a year or more probably won't compile with the latest GCCs, unless you get a development snapshot, because it's in the developers interest to have the code compile with the latest GCCs.

[worker201]

One program I attempted to install once was just plain strangely written.  It had all these includes and ifnotdefined statements about include files that were provided by the package itself!  That was a royal pain to fix.  I think it was one of the type libraries, like freetype or gettext or something like that.

[Orethrius]

One program I attempted to install once was just plain strangely written.  It had all these includes and ifnotdefined statements about include files that were provided by the package itself!  That was a royal pain to fix.  I think it was one of the type libraries, like freetype or gettext or something like that.

 Sounds an awful lot like forcing the ATi properitaries to work on x86-64 (which I still haven't managed.  Phooey.)