Re: Not distributing README-release automatically.

[Jim Meyering]

On Tue, Mar 7, 2017 at 8:08 AM, Mathieu Lirzin <address@hidden> wrote:
> Hello Jim,
>
> Jim Meyering <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> On Sun, Mar 5, 2017 at 8:12 AM, Mathieu Lirzin <address@hidden> wrote:
>>>
>>> I have been using 'readme-release' module and was surprised to discover
>>> that the "README-release" file was automatically distributed without any
>>> mention in the "module/readme-release" file.
>>>
>>> After some digging I have discovered that all files from the "top"
>>> directory are automatically added to EXTRA_DIST.  Here is a snippet from
>>> bootstrap that could be removed:
>>>
>>> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>>>       if test -n "$top_files"; then
>>>         sed_prepend_topdir='s,^,$(top_srcdir)/,'
>>>         echo "EXTRA_DIST += "`echo "$top_files" | sed -e 
>>> "$sed_prepend_topdir"`
>>>         echo
>>>       fi
>>> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>>>
>>> IMO we should move the responsability of distributing "top/*" files to
>>> the module definition instead, and not distributing "README-release"
>>> automatically (like what is done in Coreutils).
>>>
>>> What do people think?
>>
>> Regarding README-release, I'm leery of requiring each
>> top-file-specifying module writer to remember to add each such file to
>> EXTRA_DIST. An alternative, probably-smaller change may be to add some
>> attribute by which a module with such a file could opt out of that
>> default.
>
> That would be fine with me.  However I am not sure this additional logic
> would be smaller (or simpler), since IIUC there is currently only 3
> top-file-specifying modules:
>
>   - maintainer-makefile
>   - readme-release
>   - gnumakefile
>
> Do I overlook something?

I hadn't counted, and expected more. Given there are only three,
adding an 'EXTRA_DIST += ...' in two of the three seems reasonable. Do
you feel like writing the patch?