Re: automake fun

[Colin Walters <walters@debian.org>]

Matt Zimmerman <mdz@debian.org> writes:

> 4) AM_MAINTAINER_MODE

This would require both upstream changes (adding AM_MAINTAINER_MODE to
configure.in), and debian/rules changes (passing
--disable-maintainer-mode) to "configure".  I suppose it is the best
solution, but the fact that it requires upstream changes means one
can't implement it in a NMU.

Any other opinions?  To summarize, we have five choices now:

1) Build-Depend on autoconf and automake: this doesn't really solve
   the problem.  Rerunning autoconf and automake is upstream's job.
2) Change all the timestamps such that those rules will never be
   executed.
3) Comment out those rules in all the Makefile.in files as part of
   your Debian diff.
4) Make upstream use AM_MAINTAINER_MODE (Matt Zimmerman)
5) Frobbing $PATH so that auto{conf,make} turn into /bin/true (Adam
   Heath)

So, which will it be?  Any other opinions?  Votes?  Again, the reason
I brought this up is so maintainers can with confidence implement the
One True Debian way, and a maintainer looking at the source for
another package will know what to expect.