It seems a shame that a distribution tarball will lack a source file due to makefile build rules. Build rules are a simple technical issue, which have been solved before, and are even already supported by Automake.
A project which requires being tethered to a particular computer server, which speaks a particular network protocol, and still has particular files, seems less "free" and less future-safe than one which makes all source files used to produce the tarball available in the tarball. Once the tarball has been retrieved (or is already available) then the user has everything needed for development. The original server may be long deceased before the user makes use of the tarball. I have a strong dislike for projects which behave differently (by default) because there is a ".git" subdirectory, or some other file in the project directory, or because the source files were retrieved in a particular way. Is it possible to solve this issue by adding a configuration option, or extra maintsiner step/mode, so everything used to produce the build product (tarball) is included? Bob On Sun, Jun 1, 2025, 4:10 PM Karl Berry <k...@freefriends.org> wrote: > Hi Gavin, > > https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-texinfo/2022-05/msg00000.html > > I wrote at the time (in a private email): > > Yes, I am still opposed. I believe it is wrong to include it in the > > distribution as it can delete or overwrite files from the > distribution, > > with no way to get them back, unlike Makefile rules (e.g. "make > distclean"). > > Thanks much. That is convincing to me. I'll plan to remove bootstrap > from EXTRA_DIST for the next release, barring opposite arguments ... -k > >
