A Cry For Sanity

[Andrew John Hughes]

2008/6/26 Andrew Haley <aph at redhat.com>:
> Andrew John Hughes wrote:
>> Is there a particular reason we keep generated files (configure,
>> aclocal.m4, Makefile.in) in the repository?  I ideally like to remove
>> them for the following reasons:
>
> It's much easier for a person who just wants to download and build
> not to have to regenerate the auto* scripts.  autotools are notoriously
> sensitive to having the exact versions installed.  If we check in the
> generated scripts they do not have to run auto* locally.  It's about
> lowering the barrier to entry: if we don't check in the generated
> scripts it'll be much harder for people to get started.
>

It's this sensitivity that also swings it the other way from me; I've
had to be selective
on which systems I alter IcedTea to avoid drastically changing the autogenerated
files due to version changes in the autotools.

As for people getting started, hacking on IcedTea pretty much requires
having the
autotools as most of the changes are to Makefile.am and configure.ac.
If you're just talking
about building, then that's why we have releases.  I've always assumed
one of the main
reasons we bother with releases is to provide a version explicitly for
building, whether that
be by a distro or for the individual.  Thus, I'd expect the
version-controlled tree to be
suitable for developers and the releases to be suitable for consumers.

> Now, one other thing: we should not regenerate the scripts with a
> simple configure and make.  If someone wants to change the
> generated scripts, that should be a *deliberate act*.
>

Then blame whoever turned on maintainer mode, because that happens
with IcedTea but not GNU Classpath.

>> Anyone capable of
>> installing Mercurial can surely also install the autotools?
>
> That's an attitude problem.  There are far more people building
> than merging, and you're favouring the core developers, thus
> raising the barrier to entry.
>

I wasn't talking about merging.  Getting a non-release copy of IcedTea
means you have to have downloaded the source tree to begin with.

> Andrew.
>

-- 
Andrew :-)

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