[GenABEL-dev] Proposal to remove non-EIGEN code paths from ProbABEL

[Maarten Kooyman]

On 18-04-14 16:35, L.C. Karssen wrote:
> a) include a copy of the EIGEN source code in the ProbABEL code base (in
> SVN)
I strongly oppose to this option: we do not want to maintain this code 
and what should it do in our SVN?
> b) include a copy of the EIGEN source code in the official released
> ProbABEL tar.gz.
This seems to me as the most foolproof way to distribute ProbABEL as 
code: you control also the versions of dependencies which can be handy 
compared to run into old versions of libraries. This  results sometime 
in faulty binaries or non compiling set ups . Licence wise it looks 
all-right to me (however, I am not a OSS lawyer). The EIGEN source files 
as provided on the website are about a megabyte: this should not be a 
problem for distribution. If you look at the boost library licence wise 
it seem also fine,however the download provided as on there site is 60 
megabyte: quite a download! We have to trim down this size one way or an 
other.

> c) don't include the EIGEN source code, but provide very clear
> instructions on how to obtain EIGEN.
Reading manuals is often not done. Also this makes it harder for 
inexperience computer user and rises the bar for usage.

> d) include a script that downloads and extracts the latest EIGEN and
> mention that script in the installation instructions.

> e) Automatic download and extraction of the EIGEN source code during the
> ./configure (or make) process of ProbABEL.
Sounds nice but right now I have problems to download EIGEN from there 
server.  Maybe we should host the software ourself. This still causes 
size problems for downloading boost. Option E is as a workflow easier 
then options D. However, this downloading can be buggy since you not 
sure wget/curl is installed on the users system. (This needs also direct 
internet connection to the WWW and this not always the cause on some 
servers)


Why do we not provide a statically  executable? We have Jenkins in place 
to perform the builds.


Kind regards,

Maarten