On Thu, Dec 26, 2013 at 09:01:29PM +0100, Vincent Bernat wrote: > ❦ 26 décembre 2013 01:04 CET, Colin Watson <cjwat...@debian.org> : > > It is true that compatibility is sometimes less than ideal, but brushing > > the problem under the carpet just means that somebody gets to discover > > this when they're in a hurry trying to fix some unrelated problem years > > later, when the change in the autotools has been largely forgotten > > about, rather than it being fixed in a timely fashion. > > Urgent updates, like security issues, seldomly need to patch the build > system. For one hour spent by the maintainer to fix the build system to > be able to build with a more recent version of automake or a more > ancient version of automake, how much time is saved by a third-party > person? Most of the time, none.
I agree with Russ' reply to this, to the effect that the global time spent doesn't really change much; it just moves it around. I would add that it's better for the package maintainer to deal with this kind of thing, since they're familiar with the package, than for drive-by bug-fixers to have to figure it out. My perspective on this is rather different from yours, as I *have* been in the position of having to patch build systems for some pretty urgent fixes, quite frequently even. In a few cases I have even had to resort to holding my nose and patching *only* the generated files because it was just too hideously painful to make them behave properly when the true source files were touched at all. Nowadays my position is: no more. I understand the autotools well enough that I'll take the time to fix it properly, damn it, so that the next person doesn't have the same problem. > We don't need to put more burden on maintainers. It is better to really > build from sources and it is good if you spend time on it, but IMO, we > can't afford to make this a rule. Note that I wasn't suggesting it should be made a rule, mainly because it would be a completely unrealistic rule today. I would like to eventually get there, but for the meantime I'd settle for it being a strong guideline and sending a ton of patches to move that along as best I can. Of course, autoreconfing has been a strong guideline in /usr/share/doc/autotools-dev/README.Debian.gz for at least 4.5 years now, which is referenced from devref 6.7.1 ... the trick is to get enough people to notice it. -- Colin Watson [cjwat...@debian.org] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20131226222350.ga19...@riva.ucam.org
