Re: config.guess and freedom (was: 1.8 and mkdir_p)

[Bob Friesenhahn]

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004, Bob Proulx wrote:
>
> > If the releases are all that similar, why not use:
> >
> >  i686-GnuLinux-*
> >
> > as your test, and provide the "popular" distributions in the 3rd field?
> >
> > The "magic" command has a large database of selections on it; using this
> > sort of mechanism should greatly ease the burder on the config.*
> > maintainers.
>
> That sounds like the architecture and philosophy of imake.

Not exactly.  The philosophy of imake is that the imake configuration
is primarily vendor maintained.  This is/was reasonable for X11 since
most vendors were interested in supporting/offering X11.

Autoconf does not benefit from that environment.

Long ago I wrote a magazine article about Autoconf and feature-based
testing (see "http://www.byte.com/art/9711/sec4/art2.htm";).  At that
time feature-based testing was relatively new and was being
incorporated in open source packages.  Based on the ease of installing
most open source packages that provide a "configure" script, it seems
that feature-based testing has proven to be a resounding success.

Bob
======================================
Bob Friesenhahn
address@hidden
http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen