[ On Thursday, May 30, 2002 at 09:09:16 (-0400), mcmahill@mtl.mit.edu wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: BUILD_DEPENDS on autoconf 
>
> why's that?  Patch configure.in, rerun autoconf to get a new configure and
> then produce a diff against the old one which you can provide as a patch.

Because they are enormous, and they are not consistent between even
compatible versions of autoconf.  I.e. they are literaly impossible to
maintain.

> I strongly agree that we should avoid auto{conf,make} BUILD_DEPENDS
> especially as they require perl and not everyone may want to install that.

That's B.S.  Anyone building software _MUST_ be prepared to install all
the tools necessary.  If you don't want to be doing that then you can
far more easily just use binary packages -- that's one of the reasons
they exist!

Besides, there's little or no effort required for anyone using pkgsrc.
Just type "make install" and sit back and wait patiently.  Pkgsrc
encodes within its structure the knowledge about which tools are needed
for building software and where to get them and how to install them.
You don't have to know anything about how it all works to use it
successfully.

I hate everything about perl as much or more than anyone else I know,
but I've no qualms about installing it so that I can use the GNU Auto*
tools.  If I were to follow your argument I would refuse to install G++
on my NetBSD systems (and thus have to avoid any software written in
C++).  I.e. your argument just doesn't wash.

> Plus there is the whole problem with autoconf-2.13 and 2.5* not being
> compatible.  The same problem exists with automake-1.{4,5,6}

Please read my recently posted proposal (and PR# 17018) regarding the
migration to new GNU Auto* tools for pkgsrc.  I've been using the latest
releases in combination with simultaneously installed copies of the
ancient releases and all's been going very well so far.  This is _not_
an issue.

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098;  <gwoods@acm.org>;  <g.a.woods@ieee.org>;  <woods@robohack.ca>
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