[petsc-dev] [Mike McQuaid] Re: [Homebrew/homebrew-core] PETSc: import from homebrew-science (#23598)

[Smith, Barry F.]

  So fix the damn script instead of just bitching about it! Jeepers, that is what open source is all about.

  Or if it is so terrible and unfixable then write a new script. The time wasted on mailing lists and arguing with package manager developers would be better spent fixing installer code.

   Barry


> On Feb 25, 2018, at 11:53 AM, Jed Brown <jed at jedbrown.org> wrote:
> 
> "Smith, Barry F." <bsmith at mcs.anl.gov> writes:
> 
>>   Lisandro,
>> 
>>    I don't understand this. Are you saying that the PETSc installer installs a bunch of files it shouldn't so you strip them out 
>> after the install is run? 
>> 
>>   The PETSc installer is a nice flexible piece of python code. 
> 
> It's so "nice" that it's littered with TODO comments written years ago
> by you about how it should do some of the things that Lisandro's script
> is doing.
> 
> I now also see that it writes an uninstall script that would delete
> /usr/bin if the user installed with --prefix=/usr.
> 
> It also doesn't fix permissions like every normal package does.  (This
> is an issue if the user building the software doesn't have umask 022.)
> 
>> I don't understand why you people who understand which files shouldn't
>> be installed don't just edit the installer to prevent it from
>> installing things it shouldn't instead of writing ad hoc post-install
>> cleanup scripts. Why is "fixing" the installer so difficult that you
>> guys just leave it in a broken state for years? (The reason I don't
>> "fix" it is that I don't know what needs to be fixed since I don't
>> interact with the package managers.