[Fedora-packaging] Re: PackagingDrafts/AutoConf

[Enrico Scholz]

Ralf Corsepius <rc040203 at freenet.de> writes:

> AM_MAINTAINER_MODE suppresses the deps we are discussing here.
>
> This allows people to get away with packages containing broken
> timestamps, which introduces risks to upstreams if not handled with
> care and is unhandy for upstream usage.

When you are upstream, you have probably mechanism/scripts to call
configure with special parameters (e.g. adding '-g3' to CFLAGS,
setting a writable '--prefix', setting another CC).  Putting an
'--enable-maintainer-mode' there does not harm.


> I am upstream maintainer of a package, which uses AM_MAINTAINER_MODE. The
> most frequently answered question related to building issues is: "Did you
> pass --enable-maintainer-mode?"

Reducing stability (-> occasional autotool invocations in uncontrolled
environments) and removing features (-> ability to patch configure) just
to avoid some support requests is a bad deal.


Enrico