Should /usr/share/aclocal be in filesystem?

[Orion Poplawski]

Many packages dump their aclocal files in /usr/share/aclocal, but really 
don't need to require automake for normal usage.  Should all of these 
packages also own /usr/share/aclocal, or should it get moved to filesystem?

-- 
Orion Poplawski
Technical Manager                     303-415-9701 x222
NWRA/CoRA Division                    FAX: [phone]
3380 Mitchell Lane                  orion(a)cora.nwra.com
Boulder, CO 80301              http://www.cora.nwra.com

[Tom Callaway]

On Thu, 2007-10-25 at 11:15 -0600, Orion Poplawski wrote:
>  Many packages dump their aclocal files in /usr/share/aclocal, but
> really 
>  don't need to require automake for normal usage.  Should all of these 
>  packages also own /usr/share/aclocal, or should it get moved to filesystem? 
Seems like a decent idea to move to filesystem.

~spot

[Matthias Clasen]

On Thu, 2007-10-25 at 14:05 -0400, Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
>  On Thu, 2007-10-25 at 11:15 -0600, Orion Poplawski wrote:
>  > Many packages dump their aclocal files in /usr/share/aclocal, but really 
>  > don't need to require automake for normal usage.  Should all of these 
>  > packages also own /usr/share/aclocal, or should it get moved to filesystem?
>  
>  Seems like a decent idea to move to filesystem.
>   
Can we please not change our stance on this every other release ? 
I've added tons of Requires: automake for this exact reason. 
And it doesn't seem like a big burden for a devel package to require
automake. If we are not talking about devel packages, then that would be
the thing to fix...

[Tom Callaway]

On Thu, 2007-10-25 at 14:07 -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
>  On Thu, 2007-10-25 at 14:05 -0400, Tom "spot" Callaway
> wrote:
>  > On Thu, 2007-10-25 at 11:15 -0600, Orion Poplawski wrote:
>  > > Many packages dump their aclocal files in /usr/share/aclocal, but really 
>  > > don't need to require automake for normal usage.  Should all of these 
>  > > packages also own /usr/share/aclocal, or should it get moved to filesystem?
>  > 
>  > Seems like a decent idea to move to filesystem.
>  > 
>  
>  Can we please not change our stance on this every other release ? 
>  I've added tons of Requires: automake for this exact reason. 
>  And it doesn't seem like a big burden for a devel package to require
>  automake. If we are not talking about devel packages, then that would be
>  the thing to fix... 
Technically, we're not really changing our stance here. 

If all of the packages putting aclocal bits are -devel packages, then it
should be ok to let automake own that directory, and have those -devel
packages depend on automake. If we've got non-devel packages doing this,
then we need to look into moving that directory ownership to something
more universal, like filesystem.

The stance here is that packages need to Require (either directly, or
implicitly through a dep chain) the packages which provide directories
that they put files in.

~spot

[Orion Poplawski]

Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
>  Technically, we're not really changing our stance here. 
>  
>  If all of the packages putting aclocal bits are -devel packages, then it
>  should be ok to let automake own that directory, and have those -devel
>  packages depend on automake. If we've got non-devel packages doing this,
>  then we need to look into moving that directory ownership to something
>  more universal, like filesystem. 
It was a -devel package in question, so we'll have it require automake ( 
though it still rankles a little - the -devel package is easily used 
without automake).

-- 
Orion Poplawski
Technical Manager                     303-415-9701 x222
NWRA/CoRA Division                    FAX: [phone]
3380 Mitchell Lane                  orion(a)cora.nwra.com
Boulder, CO 80301              http://www.cora.nwra.com

[Patrice Dumas]

On Thu, Oct 25, 2007 at 02:24:35PM -0400, Tom spot Callaway wrote:
>  
>  
>  Technically, we're not really changing our stance here. 
>  
>  If all of the packages putting aclocal bits are -devel packages, then it
>  should be ok to let automake own that directory, and have those -devel
>  packages depend on automake. If we've got non-devel packages doing this, 
I don't think every package shipping an autoconf macro should
mandatorily depend in automake. It should be left to the packager. 
So if /usr/share/aclocal isn't owned by the filesystem package, packages
have to own /usr/share/aclocal.

--
Pat