[Classpathx-discuss] ANT and JUNIT issues

[Nic Ferrier]

There is NO issue with using ANT for builds if you want.

However, you MUST provide an autoconf/make based build. All the existing
project (except crypto, but they're working on it) provide autoconf based
builds.

Autoconf is the GNU standard for building things and personally I prefer it.
It's also a lot easier to integrate with native libraries, which is more
important when you're compiling with gcj.


If you're going to use ANT you should supply just the build.xml and any
non-core ANT tasks that you use. There is no redistribution issue unless the
tasks are licenced to prevent distribution with free software.

You should not put ANT in the dependanices for your sub-project: we don't
have people download make with every piece of software they use, why make
them do that with ANT?


JUNIT is more tricky... the GNU project doesn't yet have a testing framework
standard, though the mauve project is trying to move us all that way
(http://sources.redhat.com/mauve/)

I think we need some debate about this, in order to do that I'd like one,
fairly established, project to develop some Junit tests and we can have a
look at how it works.

In the near future I might ask someone to look at developing some mauve
tests for another project.


Nic