>> (im not an expert on autotools and this may sound simplistic, but >> FWIW) Ive often wondered why ./configure has to be a script, i >> understand it has to be portable, but couldnt the build tools compile >> a binary that calls on a c library that provides most of the >> functionality. > >Maybe I am the one now who is totally not getting it, but: > >How could you distribute a binary to run on all the different kinds of >systems? I use Cygwin and MinGW. Am I going to be excluded from Open >Source packages because the package maintainer decided not to provide >such a binary? I don't follow the logic here. Are you saying that the >package maintainer will compile a binary "./configure" using h[er|is] >"build tools"? Or are you saying each end user will first unroll the >tarball and then build a binary "./configure" (the latter being the only >way that seems to make sense). Then you still have the problem of the C >library. I assume if the latter, that there will be a canonical download >location (+ mirrors) for precompiled libraries (on my platform(s), that >means Windoze DLLs)?
The easiest way would be for ./configure to find the C compiler and build a simple utility binary from source, then use that for the rest of the configuration. -- Dean Povey, |em: [EMAIL PROTECTED]|JCSI: Java security toolkit Wedgetail Communications|ph: +61 7 3023 5139 |uPKI: Embedded/C PKI toolkit Level 14, 388 Queen St, |fax: +61 7 3023 5199 |uSSL: Embedded/C SSL toolkit Brisbane, Australia |www: www.wedgetail.com |XML Security: XML Signatures
