On Tue, 26 Feb 2013 21:57:52 -0800 (PST)
Rob Landley <rob@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Before 2.6.25 building Linux never required perl. This patch series removes
> the requirement from basic kernel builds (tested on i686, x86_64, arm, mips,
> powerpc, sparc, sh4, and m68k). Now updated to 3.8-rc1.
>
> Note, this removes perl from the _build_ environment, not from the _development_
> environment. This is approximately the same logic behind "make menuconfig"
> requiring curses but "make oldconfig" not requiring curses. Including
> zconf.lex.c_shipped in kconfig and then requiring perl makes no sense.
>
> ...
>
> Mostly people just copy the patches into their local projects (ala
> https://github.com/rofl0r/sabotage/tree/master/KEEP ) but I'm reposting
> them to linux-kernel after Gentoo considered using these patches, but didn't
> because they weren't upstream:
> https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=421483
Sitting here scratching head wondering why you-need-perl is a problem
for anyone.
That gentoo bug report provides some explanation: "perl was removed
from @system". But I expect other people have different reasons.
IOW, please better describe the motivation for this patchset.