autoreconf vs patching (Was Re: New package for review: gnome-cpufreq-applet)

Toshio toshio at tiki-lounge.com
Sun Feb 13 14:15:31 UTC 2005


On Sun, 2005-02-13 at 12:28 +0100, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
> Adrian, cause there might be problems due to different autotools-
> versions we normally (at least AFAIK) solve this not by a autoreconfig
> in the spec file. We instead create a patch after running autoreconf -i
> -f against an unmodified src-tree and but the patch in the spec file.
> See sirius/sirius.spec for an example. Remember to remove the autoreconf
> cache-dir autom4te.cache/ before diffing.

Opinion differs between whether to reconf or patch.  Both have their
ugly sides.  On the debit side for patching is that it creates a large
patch of autogenerated shell code that often has little significant
change in it but could contain malicious code (so should be reviewed
when it comes from untrusted packagers.)  Autoreconf _should_ also be
reproducible so putting it in the spec is logical.

Searching fedora-devel will reveal that there's people on both side of
the argument... probably because it's kludge either way.

Thorsten -- what exactly are you thinking of in terms of version
mismatch?  I generally prefer to go the autoreconf route and was
wondering which aspect of versioning you think is problematic so I can
see if there's a way to work around it.

-Toshio
-- 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/fedora-extras-list/attachments/20050213/6e538f28/attachment.sig>


More information about the fedora-extras-list mailing list