Re: [gpsd-dev] report on my build nits

[Greg Troxel]

"Gary E. Miller" <address@hidden> writes:

>> > I don't have a binary "python" and set PYTHON=python2.7 in the
>> > environment before calling scons.  This used to work fine, and now
>> > it doesn't seem to (python not found) -- but lots of things seem
>> > odd which is probably just one other issue causing multiple
>> > oddnesses.  Has anything changed about this?  
>> 
>> It used to be that PYTHON in the environment worked, and now it
>> doesn't.
>
> What are you trying to do with the PYTHON variable?  I don't need that
> with Gentoo.

I need to set PYTHON because I have no program named "python".  Despite
differing with PEPfoo, my system views it as necessary for soundness to
bind each python-using program to a specific python version at
build/install time, rather than letting it pick up some
possibly-different python at run time.  Not going to get resolved, but
gpsd should be able to cope with PYTHON naming the one to use when there
is no python.  It turns out it basically can, with another variable.

>> The docs didn't explain the scons target_python option,
>> needed to find a python interpreter not named python.
>
> You can't just change the name of the python program, you also, usualy,
> need to change the PYTHONPATH.

Each python program has a compiled-in default PYTHONPATH that works;
python3.7 e.g. looks in 
/usr/pkg/lib/python3.7/site-packages/./usr/pkg/lib/python3.7/site-packages/

>> So other than enforcing version matching on xgps vs gpsd, my issues
>> are all cleared up.
>
> Eric keeps insisting no the current behavior.  It does simplify a lot
> of things and has quickly identified bad installs.

It does, but it also breaks the notion of gpsd as a network protocol
where you can run a client on one machine and the gpsd server on
another.  Arguably there should be a protocol version instead, with
significant effort not to have a breaking change.