Allow using a system-installed giflib

[Alan Bateman]

On 11/04/2013 11:24, Andrew Hughes wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
>> On 09/04/2013 23:11, Omair Majid wrote:
>>> :
>>> I would like to avoid this in the future; any tips on how to run the old
>>> build? I couldn't get it to work last I tried (the error messages were
>>> redirecting me to the new build).
>> I see Brad's reply but I think what you are looking for is actually:
>>
>> make NEWBUILD=false
>>
>> It's not clear how long the old build will remain on life support.
>> Hopefully the last few people that are still using the old build will
>> migrate soon so that we don't have to continue to keep it working.
> This is news to me.  I tried our usual IcedTea build with 8, and it just told
> me I had to use the new one.  So we converted.
>
> The work we've done on system libraries for 8 we did for 6&  7 a long time ago
> with the old build system, so we could add it to 8.  But is there really any point?
I don't think it's worth doing either.

Personally I think it would be good to agree and set a date, after which 
there is no requirement to keep the old build "working". At the moment 
it is a tax on all changes that involve change changes. I'm not even 
sure that the old build generates good bits as I don't know of any 
testing that is done with the old build now.

-Alan