Hello everyone, Scott James Remnant dropped me an email recently, interested in improving the automake situation in Ubuntu and Debian[0]. Right now the automake packages looks like this:
automake1.4: This is the old school package, that's been completely unsupported for a number of years (since 2002). It certainly not used with any new software and any software still using it should be migrated away from it. It is also the only package that provides "automake", cause there are still 73 packages[1] by my reckoning that build depend on automake and expect that be automake 1.4. automake1.7, automake1.8, automake1.9: This is the new generation of automake. While mostly compatible with each other, each new revision brings in some backwards incompatible changes. This is mostly due to automake's free form nature, and no strict API for generating makefiles. Right now, the "automake" command is set up as an alternative, and all these automake* packages provide those alternatives, with automake1.9 having the highest priority. This situation isn't ideal because users can't just install automake and get the expected latest version. So I propose the following steps to take back the automake package name: 1. Remove the automake and automaken provides from automake1.4 and take it out of the alternatives infrastructure (alternatively leave the alternatives but still removing the provides, with automake1.4 providing the lowest alternative value). Make clear in the package description and whatnot that automake 1.4 is deprecated and should only be used in highly special circumstances. 2. Start shipping an automake package again that would track the latest upstream version of automake (or be a dummy package that depended on the latest version) and give it the highest alternative priority. This will give most users the latest version (and hence have a better automake experience), while still allowing packages to depend on other versions. 3. Leave the alternatives system in place for >= 1.7 versions of automake, to give people the ability to say "No, I want my system to be version 1.X of automake, until I say otherwise" Now before I can implement this master plan, I need to fix all the packages that still build depend on "automake"[1]. To proceed with this I'd like to file wishlist bugs (with patches) against these packages one week from today. One week after that, with the Release Team's blessing, I'd like to start NMUing as much of these packages as I can. Once that is complete, I'd like to make the transition and raise the severity of any of bugs that remain. If you find your package listed in [1], the first step is to check if you actually need to be build depending against automake at all. In most cases you shouldn't. If you really do need it (ie you've modified a Makefile.am), consider running the appropriate automake in your source tree and shipping them in your .diff.gz. While bloating the .diff.gz slightly, it will lead to more predictable builds and less nagging from me when these transitions have to happen. [0] Their plan, which mirrors mine, is documented here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/AutomakeTransition [1] Output of: grep-dctrl -ne -s Package -F Build-Depends,Build-Depends-Indep 'automake[^1n]' /var/lib/apt/lists/http.us.debian.org_debian_dists_unstable_main_source_Sources | grep -v -E 'gcc-3.3|easypg|ext2resize|freesci|gnuift|isoqlog|jack-tools|kmymoney2|oprofile' | dd-list --stdin (those packages filtered out are ones that do have automake in there build depend line, but not in a way that could lead to problems with this transition, eg automake1.9 | automake). Laszlo Boszormenyi (GCS) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> xmms-blursk Peter De Schrijver (p2) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> coriander Thomas Bushnell, BSG <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> oaf Michael Banck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> irssi-plugin-icq Karl Bartel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> black-box penguin-command Eduard Bloch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> lufs Ed Boraas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> aime Jeremy T. Bouse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> fwbuilder libfwbuilder libgcgi Rob Bradford <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> anjuta Adrian Bridgett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> gato Rune B. Broberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> tuxtype Eric Van Buggenhaut <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> fluidsynth Giacomo Catenazzi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> knapster2 Debian Hamradio Maintainers <debian-hams@lists.debian.org> ax25-apps ax25-tools libax25 Murat Demirten <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ettercap Yann Dirson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> dossizola Jochen Friedrich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> net-snmp Stephen Frost <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> libpam-ldap Debian QA Group <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> kdoc Marek Habersack <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> pexts Simon Horman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> heartbeat perdition vanessa-adt vanessa-logger vanessa-socket Mario Joussen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> affix Takuo KITAME <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> gconf Zdenek Kabelac <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> avifile Ivan Kohler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> libpam-unix2 Joshua Kwan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> zsnes Noèl Köthe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> airsnort peacock Chris Lawrence <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> gnome-lokkit Marcelo E. Magallon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> gtkgl2 gtkglarea lib3ds Camm Maguire <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> codebreaker maxima perspic Cyril Martin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> eagle-usb Martin Maurer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> fireflier Remco van de Meent <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> scli A Mennucc1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> snmpkit Stephen M Moraco <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> gpsim Gopal Narayanan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> yacas Pedro Zorzenon Neto <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> avrprog Søren Boll Overgaard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> pan tcltls Jonathan Oxer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> lcdproc Barak A. Pearlmutter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> xgraph VÃctor Pérez Pereira <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> gfslicer squidguard Zed Pobre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> cppopt libmodplug modplugxmms Filip Van Raemdonck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> clanlib Klaus Reimer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> sqlxx strutilsxx Roberto C. Sanchez <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> toshutils Amaya Rodrigo Sastre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> fkiss Riccardo Setti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> libgalago Thomas Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> fuzz Christian T. Steigies <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> luola Paul J Stevens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> dbmail Al Stone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> llvm Norbert Tretkowski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> lcd4linux Riku Voipio <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wbxml2 James R. Van Zandt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> autoproject -- Eric Dorland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ICQ: #61138586, Jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1024D/16D970C6 097C 4861 9934 27A0 8E1C 2B0A 61E9 8ECF 16D9 70C6
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