On Fri, Aug 12, 2005 at 02:12:57AM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: > On Fri, Aug 12, 2005 at 10:15:41AM +0200, Bas Wijnen wrote: > > I have some packages which use autotools. I thought it would be good to > > compile as much as possible, so it is clear all the sources are correct. That > > means including autoconf, of course. > > > However, linda doesn't agree with that: > > W: gfpoken; Package Build-Depends on automake* or autoconf. > > This package Build-Depends on automake* or autoconf. This is almost > > never a good idea, as the package should run autoconf or automake on > > the source tree before the source package is built. > > > lintian doesn't consider this to be a problem. > > > My question is: is linda correct and should I not run autoconf from > > rules.make? Extrapolating that would mean that compilation is not needed at > > all, if a precompiled version of the program is packaged in the source > > tarball. That doesn't seem right to me. So if linda is right, then where is > > the limit? Generated files which are included for portability reasons (such as > > configure) are ok, but others are not? > > The limit is between autogenerated sources that upstream ships in the > tarball, and autogenerated sources that are expected to be built at build > time. That sounds like a good way to sneak non-free stuff into main. In fact, gfpoken is a good example of that. The new upload doesn't use the original artwork, because it had to be compiled with povray. However, the compiled files were in the source tarball (in fact, the art source was in a different tarball). Opinions vary wether it was needed to have art with a free compiler, but that's because it's about art. If it would have been a piece of C code, generated with a non-free compiler, then the package obviously shouldn't be in main. However, if upstream (which could be the packager) has pregenerated the files, then according to this rule there is no problem. That doesn't seem right. > If you rerun autoconf/automake/libtool at package build-time, when you don't > need to, what you get are large diffs against upstream every time a new > version of the autotools becomes available. Aside from wasting (a little) > space in the archive, that makes it harder for NMUers or passing developers > to see what's going on in your package. I noticed that, and "manually" removed all files generated by auto* in debian/rules:clean. That way they get ignored for the diff. > The autotools-dev README.Debian is a good guide to these issues. I'll read that. Thanks, Bas Wijnen -- I encourage people to send encrypted e-mail (see http://www.gnupg.org). If you have problems reading my e-mail, use a better reader. Please send the central message of e-mails as plain text in the message body, not as HTML and definitely not as MS Word. Please do not use the MS Word format for attachments either. For more information, see http://129.125.47.90/e-mail.html
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