Re: Non-Debian packaging practice
Hi,
> The possible exception is in combination with gnulib, but this seems
> inconsistent, since most people I've asked, who know "about" autofoo,
> don't know what gnulib is. But I'd love to understand more than I do.
>
> There are now projects that want to use autotools because it is
> "right", even if they won't actually *do* anything with the output of
> the configure script, they want to be able to show their users/bosses
> that "we use autotools, ergo we are portable".
One thing is that gnulib is quite new, only few years old.
> Correct me if I'm wrong .. but thats now how it works. autoconf seems
> to provides a kind of a framework to facilitate portability, and
> automake provides a framework for creating makefiles with common and
> useful targets. Just stuffing autotools into an existing project just
> adds crud, with no benefits.
Hmm... no benefits is an overstatement.
autoconf provides a standard package configuration framework, which
allows for a ./configure script interface that parses known standard
variables, such as installation directories and compiler flags.
These days, Linux is mostly standard, and maybe you might want to care
about MacOSX and that's it, but when you have to work with the
plethora of Commercial Unices, and BSDs, it is still quite a valuable
tool.
regards,
junichi
--
dancer@{debian.org,netfort.gr.jp} Debian Project
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