[GHC] #5994: Consider adding a flag to ghc's configure to automatically bootstrap and install cabal-install along with ghc

[GHC]

#5994: Consider adding a flag to ghc's configure to automatically bootstrap and
install cabal-install along with ghc
---------------------------------+------------------------------------------
    Reporter:  td123             |       Owner:                  
        Type:  feature request   |      Status:  new             
    Priority:  normal            |   Milestone:                  
   Component:  Build System      |     Version:  7.4.1           
    Keywords:                    |          Os:  Unknown/Multiple
Architecture:  Unknown/Multiple  |     Failure:  None/Unknown    
  Difficulty:  Unknown           |    Testcase:                  
   Blockedby:                    |    Blocking:                  
     Related:                    |  
---------------------------------+------------------------------------------
Changes (by simonmar):

  * difficulty:  => Unknown


Comment:

 The reason that the `cabal-install` sources are in the GHC tree is that
 the `cabal-install` repo was merged with the `Cabal` repo, and GHC needs
 Cabal.  The other dependencies of `cabal-install`, like zlib, HTTP and
 network are not included in the GHC tree, so it's not a simple matter of
 building and shipping `cabal-install`.

 I realise there are problems here, but I don't think shipping `cabal-
 install` with GHC is the right solution.  The whole point of the Haskell
 Platform was so that we could decouple GHC development from the business
 of packaging and distributing a polished Haskell system, and moving
 `cabal-install` (and its dependencies) back into GHC is going in the wrong
 direction.

 It seems to me that most of the issues would go away if there was a timely
 cabal-install release soon after a GHC release.  Furthermore, old cabal-
 install binaries work just fine with new GHC releases (that's how I've
 been getting along, anyway).

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/5994#comment:1>
GHC <http://www.haskell.org/ghc/>
The Glasgow Haskell Compiler