source builds vs. RPMs (was: Re: gettext 0.18 grumbles)

[Bruno Haible]

Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> > Well OK - I was trying to build an RPM from the existing Fedora
> > Rawhide spec

If the Fedora 'maintainer' for gettext has not provided an RPM in a
month - the Debian 'maintainer' for gettext has delivered his package
on May 18 -, you can certainly jump in and do the job for him. I will
certainly not discourage you from doing that :-) But this route isn't
the "trivial to build" way that you were hoping for.

> To expand on this theme, I need to have a gettext 0.18 that others in
> the team can easily install

Let me repeat it: We have GNU standards that guarantee you that
  ./configure
  make
  make install
must work everywhere. This *is* the "easy install" that anyone must be
able to use.

Why did you choose to ignore the contents of the INSTALL file and go
searching for a distribution specific spec file instead? I'd like to
know. The 'buildballs' project is attempting to address issues like this.

> I need
> to make or find gettext 0.18 RPMs for Fedora 11(?), 12, 13 and Rawhide.

Why do you insist on RPMs? What prevents you from using the GNU standards
way of installing packages from source?

Bruno