Re: an update to automake-1.11?

[Ralf Corsepius <rc040203 freenet de>]

Mark McLoughlin wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-07-01 at 12:50 +0200, Ondřej Vašík wrote:
> > Mark McLoughlin wrote:
> > > On Wed, 2009-07-01 at 09:02 +0200, Ondřej Vašík wrote:
> > > > Owen Taylor wrote:
> > > > > I was rather surprised to see:
> > > > >
> > > > >  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/F9/FEDORA-2009-6661
> > > > >  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/F10/FEDORA-2009-6076
> > > > >  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/F11/FEDORA-2009-6370
> > > > >
> > > > > Where the automake was upgraded to 1.11 for F9, F10, and F11.
> > > > Upgrade on F-11 (and F-10) was requested because there are some projects
> > > > (like gnulib/coreutils) which really need automake 1.11 for build in
> > > > latest stable versions.
> > > Is there a bug report with details of this gnulib/coreutils request?
> > Not really, it was just direct irl/irc/mail communication with
> > automake/autoconf fedora maintainers&comaintainers. First request was
> > only about 1.10b in rawhide (after f-12 split) - as I needed at least
> > 1.10b to build coreutils-7.4 there (otherwise only with an ugly hack).
>
> Okay, but what exactly are we talking about here? What does gnulib or
> coreutils need that 1.10 doesn't have?
coreutils' automake configuration uses features which are not available 
before automake-1.11 (rsp. post automake-1.10 devel snapshots)

> A rebase of an important package in three stable releases, which is
> expected to break rebuilds of some packages,
No, it doesn't. It's simply that developing coreutils now requires a 
specific version of the autotools.

This is not much different from demands of many other projects, which 
also require specific versions.

The only difference is coreutils requiring a very recent automake, due 
to it exploiting a new feature and not a specific, older version due to 
suffering from compatibility issues, like most other such cases do.


> should surely have more
> justification than an empty update description, no associated bugzilla
> and claims that Jim Meyering needs some unspecified new features.
Well, these new features have been introduced to automake, primarily due 
to Jim Meyering's initiative/pressure.

I guess hardly anybody but him is currently using these features.


Ralf