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Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:31:03 -0500
From: "Jerry D. Hedden" <jdhedden AT cpan DOT org>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: Stop turning CPAN modules into Cygwin packages
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Eric Blake wrote:
> A new package, perl-Error-0.17010-1, is now available for use.

Jerry D. Hedden wrote:
> What is the point of making this a Cygwin package?

Brian Mathis wrote:
> Because when you package something using a distro's
> packaging system, you can start to have other programs
> that depend on it install them automatically using the
> package system.  Also, installing from CPAN, while very
> easy to do, does not keep track or even know about a
> distro's package management system.  So if you wanted to
> remove it later, it is not easy to do, and you could
> easily run into problems where you have installed one
> version from CPAN, then another package requires that
> module, but because you installed via CPAN it doesn't know
> that, and will then install an older version, overwriting
> your CPAN-installed version.

Okay.  I'll grant you the dependency point, and I can see
adding a CPAN module if a dependency is created.  So far,
the only dependency that exists is for 'help2man' - it needs
perl-Local-gettext.

What is the justification for these 5 modules?
    perl-Error
    perl-ExtUtils-Depends
    perl-ExtUtils-PkgConfig
    perl-Module-Build
    perl-Win32-GUI

These have no dependencies, and no Cygwin specific changes.
Therefore, there is no benefit to having them be Cygwin
packages over downloading them from CPAN.  In fact, it is a
disadvantage because newer versions will always be available
on CPAN long before updates are made to the corresponding
Cygwin packages.

Again, I stand by my point of not turning CPAN modules into
Cygwin packages unless it is necessary.

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