On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 03:25:10PM +0100, Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS wrote: > Jeroen van Wolffelaar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > > I just noted that oaklisp has a 500kB binary called 'oakworld.bin' in > > src/world. oaklisp is GPL. It seems one can re-create this binary with > > oaklisp, but to build/use oaklisp, you'll first need the .bin. So, there > > is no real bootstrapping provided AFAICS, in any case, it isn't used > > since the oakworld.bin is provided in the source tarball. > > > > Is this acceptable? For example gcc also cannot be rebuild without first > > having some C compiler. But gcc is a different beast. > > >From http://bugs.debian.org/122117 I get the impression that it's the > same sort of situation as with gcc: a programming language X is > implemented in the language X, and so it has a build dependency on > itself, in the absence of alternative implementations. > > GHC seems to be in the same situation: there are other implementations > of Haskell, but GHC uses some GHC-specific features, so you have to > compile it with GHC.
GHC can be bootstrapped without GHC itself, there is a minimal C implementation of the necessary code. No need to build-depend on itself. I notice the GHC maintainer somehow doesn't use this possibility, I don't know why, it makes bootstrapping GHC difficult. > I assume that cyclic Build-Depends are acceptable in Debian. It would > be difficult if they weren't. For essential packages, build-essential and kernels (not in the sense one build-depends on a kernel, but one requires a working kernel before running the build), it's understandable. For everything else, I consider that quite wierd. --Jeroen -- Jeroen van Wolffelaar [EMAIL PROTECTED] (also for Jabber & MSN; ICQ: 33944357) http://Jeroen.A-Eskwadraat.nl