Re: about autoconf, automake and gettext versions

[Malcolm Tredinnick <malcolm commsecure com au>]

On Mon, 2003-12-29 at 12:56, Carlos Perelló Marín wrote:
> I want to know if we will choose a "standard" version for those tools
> with GNOME 2.6 release so we can update all modules to follow it.
> 
> For example, if one GNOME Desktop modules needs automake1.7 it has no
> sense to maintain other modules asking for automake1.4
> 
> I think we should always ask the same version.
> 
> Also, the problems we had with gettext (and why we have glib-gettextize)
> seems to be gone now. I'm doing some tests to validate the new behavior
> and if they are ok, I think we should move to a new gettext version
> (perhaps 0.11 it's enough). Also with this version the translators will
> not need to update the configure.in file because a new file appears
> inside the po directory to handle the .po list.

I (mostly) agree.

I had been thinking about the same thing, except that I was going to
pitch it as something we should do for GNOME 2.8 (since we probably
should take an entire release cycle to ensure it all works).

With regards to automake, autoconf, libtool versions, we should pick a
version and say things must work with that. This must work in both ways,
too -- once we pick a version, requiring features that are only found in
a later version should be a major bug as well. We have had problems in
the past with some maintainers rushing ahead to require the latest
versions of various tools, whilst others are a little more conservative,
having been bitten before with various exciting bugs in releases.

Trying to maintain build systems that require multiple versions of
things is possible, but a little unpleasant, so I would be all in favour
of moving into the 21st century in this department at some point.
Certainly dropping the need for automake-1.4 and its annoying
incompatibilities would be nice.

Gettext is a harder one; but I have grown weary of that debate and have
no stake in it in any case.

Cheers,
Malcolm