Building RTEMS tools using Source Builder fails

[Chris Johns]

On 05/10/2017 22:02, Sebastian Huber wrote:
> On 05/10/17 12:13, Steen Ulrik Palm wrote:
>> 2.Is it possible to proceed without having to rebuild already installed tools
>> (like newlib, which takes very long time to build)?
>>
> Unfortunately not at the moment.

I do not think this is a good idea. It is impossible to know what may have
changed between the separated phases of the build and this becomes an auditing
and configuration management issue. In this case a new package would have been
installed which solves the immediate error however it is impossible to know if
earlier packages are effected and as the RSB documentation states the RSB is not
pretending to be a package management system for all hosts machines.

I understand the convenience a change like this may bring however it comes at
the cost and extra complexity of making sure a build is correct and meets the
configuration management requirements. Most users will not be building tools all
the time, most will be building their application code and so for me making sure
the tools are correct is more important.

I think being able to define package or library requirements in the
configuration files is a better path to follow. This would mean adding the
`%requires` and `%provides` keywords to the RSB and defining a suitable package
or library syntax that is portable across all the hosts the RSB supports.
Support for specific host packaging systems could be provided where a library is
mapped to a package and the packaging system queried.

This is more work than I am prepared to take on unfunded so it needs funding to
happen. It also needs support from users for each host type supported so the
effort can be maintained.

Chris