RFC: Use precompiled libprotobuf.a and libprotobuf-lite.a for macOS x86_64 host/exec configuration #83
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This tries to use prebuilt binaries of libprotobuf.a and libprotobuf-lite.a to reduce the compilation overhead of targets depending on `@com_google_protobuf//:protobuf` when building on macOS x86_64. Since the protobuf repo doesn't provide prebuilt libprotobuf.a and libprotobuf-lite.a, this uses the binaries from Homebrew. This can be useful for rules_swift, as the compilation of its persistent worker is depending on protobuf, which can take a very long time, especially for small/non-cache projects.
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Bump. Also cc @Yannic since you reviewed the referenced PR. |
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I'm concerned that it becomes increasingly hard and error-prone for us to upgrade protobuf if we keep doing these kind of things. -1 from me since (at least this PR) is only helping a small fraction of users and there is a reasonable workaround (define a |
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The maintenance burden this introduces is quite high: need to mirror, upload all os + architecture of protobuf, verify homebrew binaries (or replace them with a trusted source); repeat everything on version upgrade.
I wouldn't have a problem if there was a general+automatic mechanism to do this. Otherwise I would rather move away from precompiled binaries wherever possible and work on mechanisms that would solve the problem more generally - caching services, whatever.
With this PR only one OS is handled. Protoc PR handled all OSes, and used a source of archives from github, which we can more easily trust that homebrew. I believe protoc PR also supports the use case to compile for languages that wouldn't otherwise need cc compiler - i.e removes the dependency on cc compiler.
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Agreed with the comments. I'll drop this for now. @Yannic Thanks for the tips on the |
Inspired by #36, this tries to use prebuilt binaries of libprotobuf.a and libprotobuf-lite.a to reduce the compilation overhead of targets depending on
@com_google_protobuf//:protobufwhen building on macOS x86_64. Since the protobuf repo doesn't provide prebuilt libprotobuf.a and libprotobuf-lite.a, this uses the binaries from Homebrew.This can be useful for rules_swift, as the compilation of its persistent worker is depending on protobuf, which can take a very long time, especially for small/non-cache projects.
Open question: Should we add a flag and make this an opt-in feature? Since people may want to compile everything from source for the best compatibility.