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Re: AM_MAINTAINER_MODE


From: Bob Friesenhahn
Subject: Re: AM_MAINTAINER_MODE
Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2013 14:16:05 -0600 (CST)
User-agent: Alpine 2.01 (GSO 1266 2009-07-14)

On Thu, 7 Feb 2013, Stefano Lattarini wrote:

The reason is that while it makes total sense for developers and users
alike, it's a pain for package maintainers, as sometimes timestamps end
up mangled by patches, and we get unexpected maintainer-mode rebuilds...

Better risk an extra rebuild than to miss a required one IMVHO.  Or
understand why timestamps get mangled, and fix that problem instead of
its symptoms (i.e., unnecessary rebuilds, in this case).

It may be that Automake maintainers do not understand the usages that AM_MAINTAINER_MODE is actually being used for. This option is not only used to control automatic regeneration of autotool's related files. It can be used to gate generation of any target produced by the Makefile (not just standard autotools ones) via a Automake conditional (MAINTAINER_MODE) which is fully available for the package developer to use. There was never any claim in the Automake documentation that package developers should not use this conditional for the needs of their own package. Maintainer targets might depend on tools which are not available for every user (or not the right version) and so the result may be corrupted.

Deprecation without full understanding of repercussions is evil.

especially for source-based distribution like Gentoo, we have to be wary
about maintainer mode as it would make different users end up with
different versions of the build system...

I failed to understand what you're saying here, sorry.  Care to rephrase,
or give an example?

A carefully autotooled package may be re-autotooled by the "user" based on whatever random version they have installed or it may just fail.

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



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