Re: autoconf and epel-5

[Michael Schwendt <mschwendt gmail com>]

On Thu, 26 Feb 2009 06:20:47 +0100, Ralf wrote:

> Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> > On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 04:24:16AM +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> >> PEBKAC
> > 
> > [which means "Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair"]
> 
> Correct - I didn't mean to offend Tom, but it's obvious, that some 
> people around in this thread don't understand the autotools.
> 
> If people were understanding them, they would not run the autotools 
> inside of rpm.specs but would apply patches.

Patches? ... Patches created by regenerating modified autotools
input files?

That won't be different from running autotools at build-time. With one
exception: you get a chance to examine the patch and verify it and the
results it produces -- you can't do that with unattended rebuilds in a
build system where the autotools versions may change any time and cause
unexpected side-effects.

Anyway, in general I agree. Better prepare patch files. Relying on
arbitrary autotools versions and "autoreconf" to create good and
compatible output bears a risk. It depends on what projects you need to
patch, on the complexity of the autotools input files, and on whether they
make poor assumptions (or access variables they ought not).