Re: tar-pax or tar-ustar as a default for automake

[Bob Friesenhahn]

On Tue, 21 Jun 2011, Javier Jardón wrote:
> I'd like to know if there is a plan to switch to tar-pax or tar-ustar
> (seems that pax support is broken in openbsd) as a default tar format.
> Currently we have some problem in GNOME project with some modules
> because the limitations of the current tar format
> I'd like to know if would be possible a change in the default so we
> dont have to patch all the GNOME modules

Does automake depend on 'tar' being GNU tar?  If it will use any old 
tar, then one would assume that it uses the default output format 
since otherwise it might not know how to request some other format 
variant.  If it it used 'pax' then the output format can be certain.

Given the amount of time which has elapsed, trying to obtain at least 
'ustar' format (from POSIX.1-1988) seems quite reasonable.

Bob
--
Bob Friesenhahn
address@hidden, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/