Re: autobuild.m4

[Eric Blake]

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According to Simon Josefsson on 4/12/2007 6:51 AM:
> 
> I just realized a namespace problem, when I wanted to apply the
> following obvious patch:
> 
> +configure.ac-early:
> +AC_REQUIRE([AB_INIT])
> +

Currently, the instructions at
http://josefsson.org/autobuild/manual/autobuild.html tell the user to use
AB_INIT manually.  If you automate AB_INIT (or possibly rename it) into
gnulib's GL_EARLY, then the autobuild instructions need modification.  I
think I am okay with leaving the macro as AB_INIT, and requiring the user
to add AB_INIT to their configure.ac manually, outside of GL_EARLY; then
autobuild clients consistently follow the autobuild directions, whether
they use gnulib or manually grabbed autobuild.m4 from autobuild.  Maybe it
is also worth modifying modules/autobuild to give a URL to the autobuild
manual?

But I think it also means that you may want to improve gnulib-tool to
detect when the autobuild module is in use, and print a warning to the
user to add AB_INIT after AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR but before GL_EARLY in their
configure.ac.

> 
> Would the non-gl_ namespace be OK if we make the 'autobuild' project
> the master repository?  If so, it feels a bit silly to have Karl have
> to pull in things from this project just to avoid a namespace problem.
> I suggest we simply permit this non-gl_ namespace and consider the
> 'autobuild' project the canonical upstream for autobuild.m4 (even if
> it is technically not true).

I personally don't care which of the two projects is the master, with the
other project synchronizing upstream, but it seems easier if gnulib is the
master since you already figured out how to make autobuild use gnulib even
though it is a script-only project (hmm, maybe it is worth updating
users.txt?).  Does anyone else care?

- --
Don't work too hard, make some time for fun as well!

Eric Blake             address@hidden
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