[distcc] distcc in disguise (a suggestion for all "wrappers")

[Wayne Davison]

On Tue, Feb 04, 2003 at 02:15:29PM +1100, Martin Pool wrote:
> So the question I keep coming back to is: wouldn't it just be easier
> to fix Makefiles that have cc hardcoded?  Gentoo already has the
> ability to apply patches before building, and they could be pushed
> upstream.

An interesting question.  For me it comes down to leveraging human
resources -- it's easier for us to enhance distcc to work with existing
packages than it is for us to fix all the broken ones.

The cleanest solution would obviously be to get all the package-
maintainers to fix their packages.  That's a very large, impractical job
that is not likely to succeed in my lifetime (if ever with new packages
arriving all the time).  Once complete, though, it would mean more than
just gentoo would benefit.

Next, I could start a gentoo crusade to get all the ebuilds in portage
to patch any package that doesn't honor CC.  A huge task as well, but
one with a more targeted set of maintainers.  However, I don't like this
solution because (1) the more patches you add, the harder a build is to
maintain (when it is being updated), and (2) this only benefits gentoo.

Alternately, I could modify the gentoo version of distcc so that it
works with all the current ebuilds.  I've currently chosen to go this
route because it got me going the fastest in my gentoo work and it was
within my power to do.  Again, this only (potentially) benefits gentoo
(if the distcc package is tweaked), so it's not an optimal solution.

Finally, there's getting distcc to support running in disguise.  This
way everyone using distcc can benefit, even if the build is not the best
it can be.  It's not pretty, but it gets the job done.

Thinking of this reminds me of something else I saw in the FHS standard
recently:  the /usr/lib/sendmail symlink.  The /usr/lib dir is really
not the right place for this executable -- it goes in /usr/sbin.
However, sometimes we choose to support the less-clean solution in order
to gain a wider compatibility.

What do you think?

..wayne..