Package support (RPM, deb, pkg, kits, etc.)

[Geoffrey Wossum]

Hi,

I'm interested in platform dependent packaging support, such as RPM and
pkg and friends.  The autotools book mentions support for these for 1.5,
but the CVS code doesn't show any work towards this goal.  The TODO file
has this as a long term goal, mentioning possibly creating another tool
for this functionality.

Seeing as how packaging support doesn't seem to be here yet, I would like
to work on it.  I work on a multiplatform commercial project that was
recently switched from Imake to autotools, and platform packaging has
always been a pain.  I'd rather add support to autotools for this than
merely port the old Imake based scripts over.

So I have the following questions (some of these I'm sure will trigger
drawn out conversations):

1) Is my evalution of automake's current lack of package support correct?

2) Would it be preferable to add all the support into automake, or to 
   create another utility (autopkg?) that would be integrated with
   automake?

3) What implementation language would be preferred for another tool?  I
   would prefer Perl5, but I am open to suggestions from the community.

4) What should the interface into the packaging support be?

autotools are the best software build tools around.  With platform
packaging support, nobody would ever want to use anything else.

---
Geoffrey Wossum
address@hidden