Re: Autoconf 2.50
Denis Barbier <barbier@imacs.polytechnique.fr> wrote:
>About man-db, i guess from the changelog that you could have removed
>autoconf from Build-Depends since 2.3.18-1
Possibly, yes, but I've been bitten by thinking that in the past.
>Same with groff, is there a reason to run autoconf from debian/rules?
>
>Only upstream authors should decide whether or not to upgrade to
>autoconf 2.50, i do not understand why so many packages run
>auto{conf,make} when compiling (or even Build-Depends on these tools
>without invoking them).
Because upstream Makefiles (including groff's) often correctly include
rules to update configure from configure.in if the latter changes. Since
many packages patch configure.in (including groff), autoconf has to be
re-run by somebody, and if both configure and configure.in are patched
in the .diff.gz it's possible for the timestamps to get out of sync.
--
Colin Watson [cjw44@flatline.org.uk]
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