Re: autoconf 2.50b ... ?

[Malcolm Tredinnick <malcolm commsecure com au>]

On Sun, Jul 08, 2001 at 11:58:18PM +0200, Martin Baulig wrote:
> what do you think about updating the GNOME 2 platform to use
> autoconf 2.50b ?

I just had a bit of a read of various documentation and mailing list
posts about this release. Doing the change for the existing stuff right
now is probably not a big deal. However, as people start to move their
apps over in preparation for Gnome 2.0, we are going to have to ready to
handle a million queries because of two things:

(1) Unless I've misread stuff, all the documentation directories should
really be called 'docs'. Currently we have an interesting collection of
'doc', 'docs', 'documentation' and there's possibly even one or two
'how-to-use-it' or something equally insane. This isn't too bad ... but
each project will need CVS surgery when the maintainer gets organised.

(2) It appears there are some cool problems arising because the quoting
rules have changed slightly. The autoconf announcement says this is to
make them more consistent. However threads like this one

	http://mail.gnu.org/pipermail/autoconf/2001-May/010764.html

(which didn't seem to get resolved) mean it could be fun.

However, I think it's worth the change. It will be slightly painful
whenever we move over and if we don't change now, when do we? Gnome 2.0
is not meant to be final until December this year. Debian unstable has
already moved to autoconf 2.50. Other distros may also have done so by
then. Some won't havem though. So whichever way we go, there will be
some distros that can't build "out of the box" (or out of the CVS tree).
I would think it's easier to say "upgrade autoconf" than to say
"downgrade autoconf".  (Did that make sense?)

Cheers,
Malcolm

-- 
The colder the x-ray table, the more of your body is required on it.