Hello everyone, Scott James Remnant dropped me an email recently, interested in improving the automake situation in Ubuntu and Debian[0]. Right now the automake packages looks like this: automake1.4: This is the old school package, that's been completely unsupported for a number of years (since 2002). It certainly not used with any new software and any software still using it should be migrated away from it. It is also the only package that provides "automake", cause there are still 73 packages[1] by my reckoning that build depend on automake and expect that be automake 1.4. automake1.7, automake1.8, automake1.9: This is the new generation of automake. While mostly compatible with each other, each new revision brings in some backwards incompatible changes. This is mostly due to automake's free form nature, and no strict API for generating makefiles. Right now, the "automake" command is set up as an alternative, and all these automake* packages provide those alternatives, with automake1.9 having the highest priority. This situation isn't ideal because users can't just install automake and get the expected latest version. So I propose the following steps to take back the automake package name: 1. Remove the automake and automaken provides from automake1.4 and take it out of the alternatives infrastructure (alternatively leave the alternatives but still removing the provides, with automake1.4 providing the lowest alternative value). Make clear in the package description and whatnot that automake 1.4 is deprecated and should only be used in highly special circumstances. 2. Start shipping an automake package again that would track the latest upstream version of automake (or be a dummy package that depended on the latest version) and give it the highest alternative priority. This will give most users the latest version (and hence have a better automake experience), while still allowing packages to depend on other versions. 3. Leave the alternatives system in place for >= 1.7 versions of automake, to give people the ability to say "No, I want my system to be version 1.X of automake, until I say otherwise" Now before I can implement this master plan, I need to fix all the packages that still build depend on "automake"[1]. To proceed with this I'd like to file wishlist bugs (with patches) against these packages one week from today. One week after that, with the Release Team's blessing, I'd like to start NMUing as much of these packages as I can. Once that is complete, I'd like to make the transition and raise the severity of any of bugs that remain. If you find your package listed in [1], the first step is to check if you actually need to be build depending against automake at all. In most cases you shouldn't. If you really do need it (ie you've modified a Makefile.am), consider running the appropriate automake in your source tree and shipping them in your .diff.gz. While bloating the .diff.gz slightly, it will lead to more predictable builds and less nagging from me when these transitions have to happen. [0] Their plan, which mirrors mine, is documented here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/AutomakeTransition [1] Output of: grep-dctrl -ne -s Package -F Build-Depends,Build-Depends-Indep 'automake[^1n]' /var/lib/apt/lists/http.us.debian.org_debian_dists_unstable_main_source_Sources | grep -v -E 'gcc-3.3|easypg|ext2resize|freesci|gnuift|isoqlog|jack-tools|kmymoney2|oprofile' | dd-list --stdin (those packages filtered out are ones that do have automake in there build depend line, but not in a way that could lead to problems with this transition, eg automake1.9 | automake). Laszlo Boszormenyi (GCS) <gcs@debian.hu> xmms-blursk Peter De Schrijver (p2) <p2@debian.org> coriander Thomas Bushnell, BSG <tb@debian.org> oaf Michael Banck <mbanck@debian.org> irssi-plugin-icq Karl Bartel <karlb@gmx.net> black-box penguin-command Eduard Bloch <blade@debian.org> lufs Ed Boraas <ed@debian.org> aime Jeremy T. Bouse <jbouse@debian.org> fwbuilder libfwbuilder libgcgi Rob Bradford <robster@debian.org> anjuta Adrian Bridgett <bridgett@debian.org> gato Rune B. Broberg <mihtjel@mihtjel.dk> tuxtype Eric Van Buggenhaut <ericvb@debian.org> fluidsynth Giacomo Catenazzi <cate@debian.org> knapster2 Debian Hamradio Maintainers <debian-hams@lists.debian.org> ax25-apps ax25-tools libax25 Murat Demirten <murat@debian.org> ettercap Yann Dirson <dirson@debian.org> dossizola Jochen Friedrich <jochen@scram.de> net-snmp Stephen Frost <sfrost@debian.org> libpam-ldap Debian QA Group <packages@qa.debian.org> kdoc Marek Habersack <grendel@debian.org> pexts Simon Horman <horms@debian.org> heartbeat perdition vanessa-adt vanessa-logger vanessa-socket Mario Joussen <joussen@debian.org> affix Takuo KITAME <kitame@debian.org> gconf Zdenek Kabelac <kabi@debian.org> avifile Ivan Kohler <ivan-debian@420.am> libpam-unix2 Joshua Kwan <joshk@triplehelix.org> zsnes Noèl Köthe <noel@debian.org> airsnort peacock Chris Lawrence <lawrencc@debian.org> gnome-lokkit Marcelo E. Magallon <mmagallo@debian.org> gtkgl2 gtkglarea lib3ds Camm Maguire <camm@enhanced.com> codebreaker maxima perspic Cyril Martin <mcoolive@free.fr> eagle-usb Martin Maurer <fireflier@gibraltar.at> fireflier Remco van de Meent <remco@debian.org> scli A Mennucc1 <mennucc1@debian.org> snmpkit Stephen M Moraco <stephen@debian.org> gpsim Gopal Narayanan <gopal@debian.org> yacas Pedro Zorzenon Neto <pzn@debian.org> avrprog Søren Boll Overgaard <boll@debian.org> pan tcltls Jonathan Oxer <jon@debian.org> lcdproc Barak A. Pearlmutter <bap@debian.org> xgraph VÃctor Pérez Pereira <vperez@debianvenezuela.org> gfslicer squidguard Zed Pobre <zed@debian.org> cppopt libmodplug modplugxmms Filip Van Raemdonck <mechanix@debian.org> clanlib Klaus Reimer <kay@debian.org> sqlxx strutilsxx Roberto C. Sanchez <roberto@familiasanchez.net> toshutils Amaya Rodrigo Sastre <amaya@debian.org> fkiss Riccardo Setti <giskard@autistici.org> libgalago Thomas Smith <tgs@debian.org> fuzz Christian T. Steigies <cts@debian.org> luola Paul J Stevens <paul@nfg.nl> dbmail Al Stone <ahs3@debian.org> llvm Norbert Tretkowski <nobse@debian.org> lcd4linux Riku Voipio <riku.voipio@iki.fi> wbxml2 James R. Van Zandt <jrv@debian.org> autoproject -- Eric Dorland <eric@kuroneko.ca> ICQ: #61138586, Jabber: hooty@jabber.com 1024D/16D970C6 097C 4861 9934 27A0 8E1C 2B0A 61E9 8ECF 16D9 70C6
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