On Thu, Jun 13, 2002 at 09:53:03PM +0100, Scott James Remnant wrote:
> > Lots of packages need to make changes to configure.in, I have to make
> > changes to the one in SDL, for example.
> >
> Yes, this isn't something the source package or build platform needs to
> worry about.
I did this, but it broke on PPC. I do not recall the nature of the error
offhand as it was some months ago.
> If you make the changes to the configure.in, you (as the maintainer) run
> autoconf yourself, the source package doesn't need to build-depend on
> it.
That's reasonable when it works. It is not, however, entirely practical
for large packages which actually do need to regenerate these things and
then go through and manually touch 92 files in a specific order to ensure
that nothing gets regenerated. No, I think the build-dep on automake and
autoconf is appropriate in this case, if only because it is the solution
which is less of a gross hack.
SDL, of course, works with any version of autoconf 2.13 or greater and any
version of automake 1.4 or greater. And as long as I have the technical
ability to test previous and future versions, it will continue to work
that way.
> This means that we only need to make both automake1.4 and automake1.6
> available in uncrippled form in Debian. Which of the two get installed
> and which gets called "automake" is a user choice - it's not something
> that needs to be set in the distribution.
And because the decision has apparently been made to break this sane
convention, I have made the necessary changes for this choice to be made
myself. I'm currently working on an automake1.4 which uses alternatives
for this stuff.
> Personally I'd chose automake1.6 and autoconf2.5 to have the names by
> default, simply because it might help promote people to move to the new
> ones[1] rather than defaulting to the older ones.
So I have chosen.
--
Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@bluecherry.net> You're entitled to my opinion
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
-- Robert A. Heinlein
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