Re: Shouldn't the definition of maintainer-clean be changed?

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Fri, 2007-03-16 at 14:38 +0100, Stepan Kasal wrote:
> Hello,

> Another example: when I submitted a patch that removed Makefile.in
> from MAINTAINERCLEANFILES to HAL, I got told that using
> `maintainer-clean' to delete everything generated by autotools has
> become a ``common practice'':
> http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/hal/2007-March/007667.html

"maintainer-clean" is what
http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Standard-Targets.html
says. 

Nothing more, nothing less, the rest is over-interpretation and "certain
circles' habits". 

> I'm afraid that this might become a big mess.  I think that the GNU
> standardization crew might help here.
> 
> There is a strong need for an un-bootstrap.
By whom? This is the first time I've ever heard about such a demand.

>   Which command shouls
> fill the gap?
> 
> If `make maintainer-clean', then the GNU Standards should be changed
> to reflect this.
IMO, the GNU Standards should not be changed. These folks are
over-interpreting the standard, and changing it is very likely to break
other usages.

>   The obvious disadvantage is that if the
> bootstrap&&configure does not finish, maintainer-clean is not usable.
What ever bootstrap you are referring to, it is not part of the autotools.

Ralf