automake: 1.4, 1.5, and wrapper

[Charles Wilson]

Yaakov S (Cygwin Ports) wrote:

> A few requests regarding automake:
> 
> 1) Could you please include the attached patch in automake1.4?  This
> makes automake-1.4 compatible with the other versions in accepting
> - --force-missing.  Otherwise, when using autoreconf-2.5x and automake-1.4
> together (yes, it does happen), autoreconf -f -i -v fails.

Sure, no problem.

> 2) Could you please package automake1.5 as well?  freeglut uses it.

Errr...okay.  I had originally planned to have the whole rainbow 
(1.4-1.9) but for some reason -- which I cannot remember right now -- I 
ended up not doing 1.5.  I wonder why...

Anyway, I can do this.

> 3) In addition, it is possible to have a wrapper for automake with our
> setup.  Gentoo has a similar setup, and uses this:
> 
> http://www.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/*checkout*/sys-devel/automake-wrapper/files/am-wrapper-1.sh?content-type=text%2Fplain
> 
> BTW, they have a different autoconf wrapper also:
> 
> http://www.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/*checkout*/sys-devel/autoconf-wrapper/files/ac-wrapper-3.2.sh?content-type=text%2Fplain

Hmm.  Well, for autoconf, I like using a bash script instead of perl -- 
lighter weight.  And as long as it is SEP[*] to fix the 
non-cygwin-specific bugs and maintain it, I don't care where the 
original derives: Red Hat, Mandriva, Gentoo.  Doesn't matter to me.

[*] Somebody Else's Problem

However, for automake, I've got a few issues.

#1: a decent -- not massive, but significant -- amount of work involved 
for me, vs. negligible(?) benefit for users.  Creating new versions of 
ALL packages, where each post-install/pre-remove script is modified to 
eliminate use of alternatives system.  Docu updates to remove references 
to update-alternatives... etc.

#2 transition plan from alternatives-system to wrapper script is 
problematic: users *must* upgrade ALL automakes simultaneously, as well 
as installing the new wrapper package, or serious breakage occurs.  This 
is because the preremove scripts of the existing automakes will continue 
to make the altern. symlinks until there are no more members of the 
class.  Only THEN is the top-level symlink removed, allowing for the 
wrapper to be installed in its place.

#3 cui bono?  The only advantage of a wrapper system, as opposed to the 
status quo, is that you don't need to set the current alternative 
manually to match the desired version, when using autoreconf or a 
bootstrap/autogen.sh script.  When using enable-maintainer-rules, even 
under the current system you don't need to worry because the proper 
version of automake is called explicitly.

But wrappers are sometimes wrong, so you need to manually set 
WANT_AM_FOO.  When you get right down to it, what's the diff between 
that and update-alternatives?

On a multiuser system -- most cygwin installations are not -- there is a 
significant benefit in that userA and userB are not forced to have the 
same version set as their default.  But I don't see that playing a very 
large role in cygwin.

I'm going to need an actual use-case demonstration of failure of the 
current system, before I worry about going thru the effort of 
re-introducing wrapper scripts for automake.

--
Chuck


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