Re: more build sherrif-ery (and a touch of auto*)

[Chipzz <chipzz ULYSSIS Org>]

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004, Havoc Pennington wrote:

> On Thu, 2004-11-11 at 14:47 -0500, Daniel Reed wrote:
> > Outside of GNOME, a package that needs a call to Automake that does not
> > define what version it prefers will get the newest installed (currently up
> > to 1.9).
> >
> > Inside GNOME, a package that needs a call to Automake that does not define
> > what version it prefers will get the oldest installed (down to 1.4).
>
> It doesn't make any difference what "unspecified" means because everyone
> should specify.
>
> unspecified = 1.4 because currently everyone specifies except those
> modules still untested with >1.4, since ability to specify was added in
> order to support 1.5 users. i.e. the modules that don't specify are
> expecting 1.4.
>
> If you want to add REQUIRED_VERSION=1.4 to all the modules that don't
> specify, we could make unspecified result in an error message:
>  "Must specify which versions of automake your module will be tested
> with and support. The latest version on your system is X.Y. To specify
> set REQUIRED_VERSION=X.Y"

This means we're going to be having trouble with every single new
release of automake.
I think we should rather insert a warning wrt something like:

"The latest version this package was tested with was x.yy. It may or may
not work on your system since you appear to be having a newer version."

Having a newer version doesn't necessarily mean it WILL break - and say-
ing it will, will only be causing us headeaches with every single relea-
se of automake. Repeat for autoconf, libtool, etc.
So IMHO, a warning should be enough.

What I think would be sensible is specifying a REQUIRED minimal version
and a TESTED maximum version - going below the required minimal version
should generate an error, going above the tested maximum version should
generate a warning.

kr,

Chipzz AKA
Jan Van Buggenhout
-- 

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                 UNIX isn't dead - It just smells funny
                           Chipzz ULYSSIS Org
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