[Rpm-maint] [draft] spec file unification: autotools based projects

[Hans de Goede]

Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> On Thu, 2008-07-17 at 17:09 +0200, Stanislav Brabec wrote:
>> Hallo.
>>
> 
>> %build
>>
>> Packagers are encouraged to call autoreconf whenever possible. It
>> guarantees correct build of packages on platforms, that was not
>> supported by autotools in the time of the source release.
>>
>> autoreconf -f -i
> 
> I vehmently disagree, because this contradicts the autotools' working
> principles: The autotools are not supposed to be run during building a
> package. The files they generate are supposed to be shipped as part of
> the tarball.
> 
> In practice, your recommendation is causing massive problems and is
> harmful on many occasions, esp. with improperly implemented
> auto*sources.
> 

I agree, blindly calling autoreconf is BAD really really BAD (take it from 
someone who maintanis 200 packages). Often the autoreconf input files were 
written for different versions of autofoo then are available in the buildsys, 
also as Ralf says this goes against the design principles of autofoo. I've 
often taken over packages from other people, and removed calling autoreconf and 
instead patch both the .am and .in manually (so that if autoreconf ever gets 
called again the patch sticks around), fixing many bugs that way.

Calling autoreconf more often _causes_ problems then that it solves them. If a 
package _needs_ an autoreconf for bugfixes in newer autofoo versions, upstream 
is the place todo this, not during package build!

Regards,

Hans