[csw-pkgsubmissions] newpkgs dialog

[Sebastian Kayser]

* Philip Brown <phil at opencsw.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 1:11 AM, Sebastian Kayser <skayser at opencsw.org> wrote:
> > ...
> > We don't know - but simply assume - that people actually care whether
> > dialog comes with additional dependencies. OTOH, what we do know for
> > sure is that support for different terminals is definitly more robust
> > and less likely to break when apps are linked to our CSWncurses (because
> > this implies TERMINFO=/opt/csw/share/terminfo).
> >
> > So why the heck do we go in circles around this topic every time it pops
> > up?
> 
> Well, we do know for a fact that some of our "customers" do care about
> size of packages, and needless downloads.
> The question then becomes whether or not it is "needless".
> 
> It seems clear that for those customers that dont care about color, it
> is needless.
> What other examples of "breakage" do you know of?

SSH from a Mac (default TERM=xterm-color) to a Solaris box and start a
curses application. curses which doesn't know about xterm-color will
complain and present you with a severly crippled terminal experience.

$ uname -a
SunOS rigel 5.9 Generic_112233-01 sun4u sparc SUNW,UltraAX-i2
$ echo $TERM                                                      
xterm-color

$ /usr/ccs/bin/dump -Lv /usr/bin/less | grep NEEDED               
[1]     NEEDED          libcurses.so.1
[2]     NEEDED          libc.so.1

$ /usr/bin/less /etc/release                                      
WARNING: terminal is not fully functional
/etc/release  (press RETURN)

While we technically can't do anything about Solaris-delivered
applications, we can ensure that our own stack doesn't show such issues
by consequently linking against CSWncurses. Think: "to provide a
straightforward, easy-to-use experience for the user".

Additionally, we can add a section to the user guide that tells people
to install CSWterminfo and set TERMINFO=/opt/csw/share/terminfo. That
way we then also help to cover Solaris-delivered curses apps for those
who care to read the guide.

Sebastian