20040217: problems building perl-netcdf

Randy,

>Date: 23 Feb 2004 13:23:42 -0000
>From: address@hidden
>Organization: Cactus
>To: address@hidden
>Subject: Re: 20040217: problems building perl-netcdf

The above message contained the following:

> >From the support archive, it looks like people have been reporting
> problems with netcdf-perl on Linux systems since late 2002.  One of
> my previous employers is having problems as well, but not on Linux.
> 
> I spent a few hours today trying to isolate the problem further, and
> found that the problem is not limited to just Linux systems, and not
> limited to just gcc >= 3.2.
> 
> The same failure, test_dynamic fails with a segfault, occurs on
> 
>  - Solaris 9 with gcc-3.2.2 and perl-5.8, and
>  - RedHat 9 with gcc-2.96 and perl-5.8
>  
> The problem appears to be Perl-5.8.  The reason this appears to be a
> Linux problem is because the Linux vendors adopted Perl-5.8 sooner
> than the major Unix vendors.

Good analysis.  Thanks.

> I am somewhat disappointed (to put it mildly) that this problem hasn't
> been addressed sooner...  especially considering that Perl-5.8 was
> released on Aug-18-2002.

The netCDF-Perl package is one of our low-priority ones.  Unfortunately,
we don't have the resources necessary to work on it as much as it
(perhaps) should be.  The person responsible for the netCDF-Perl package
(me) is also responsible for portions of the following packages: IDV,
LDM, UDUNITS, and netCDF.  I'm also our GForge site administrator and
have been conducting training classes for the National Weather Service.

Needless to say, my time is way overcommitted.

There is also a freely-available alternative to the netCDF-Perl package,
as well as freely-available alternative versions of perl that work
correctly.  Realistically, these lessen the need to maintain the
netCDF-Perl package.

Would you be interested in becoming a developer of the netCDF-Perl
package?  I could put the package on our GForge system and add you to
the developer list.

> If your management isn't willing to spend $500 to get a Linux PC for
> the developers, and can't afford even one man-week per year for
> netcdf-perl then perhaps you should consider killing it.

We have several Linux systems here (both 32-bit and 64-bit) as well as
AIX, IRIX, IRIX64, SunOS, OSF/1, HP-UX, and FreeBSD.

> -Randy Zagar

Regards,
Steve Emmerson