Re: [Bug] git-credential-netrc.perl is not built and is not available in `exec-path`

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Fri, May 21, 2021 at 10:27:08PM +0000, brian m. carlson wrote:

> > I agree with this, but just following up with a bit of a devil's
> > advocate: why not put osxkeychain into a regular "make install", but
> > make it conditional via a Makefile knob, like we do for other
> > platform-specific features?
> 
> Sure, let's do it.
> 
> For osxkeychain, it's probably pretty simple to always build it, since
> macOS will always have the appropriate libraries if the compiler is
> installed.

Hmm. So I tried just building oxskeychain in our CI via contrib, and it
fails. :(

It looks like it's OK with clang, but not gcc:

  https://github.com/peff/git/runs/2647748209?check_suite_focus=true

Maybe nobody cares about gcc for this use, but I'm inclined to leave it
to somebody who actually runs macOS to poke at further.

> I would be in favor of also building by default on Linux and
> having a Makefile knob to disable that, since the requisite libraries are
> a part of nearly every distribution and doing so will spur distros to
> ship it, which many do not.

I assume you mean contrib/credential/libsecret here. I'd worry that
flipping it on by default is annoying for people who build from source.
I don't have dev libraries for things like libsecret or glib on my
development system[1], and I'd be surprised if most server-oriented
machines have even the non-dev versions.

Which isn't an argument against making it easier to build them from the
main Makefile, but it seems like having them on by default (with a
NO_LIBSECRET) would cause more surprises than the other way around
(USE_LIBSECRET or similar).

I suspect that just opening a bug report against distro packages might
get some traction (especially if it comes with a patch to create the
extra package). I do wonder if packagers are hesitant to reach into
contrib/, not knowing how well maintained the contents are (to be
honest, I am not confident in how well maintained they are, either; it
might be helpful if somebody who routinely used each helper stepped up
to say that they would maintain it).

-Peff

[1] I was actually surprised I had libsecret installed at all.
    Apparently pinentry-gtk2 links against it, which I have for use with
    gpg. But my system might not be considered typical anyway, as I
    don't use any kind of "desktop environment".