Suggested packaging guideline: avoid running autoreconf

Kevin Kofler kevin.kofler at chello.at
Sun Oct 12 17:59:31 UTC 2008


Braden McDaniel <braden <at> endoframe.com> writes:
> I'm defining "building" to include whatever steps are *necessary* to
> generate an RPM.  Rebuilding the build system scripts is not necessary
> and can, in general, be avoided.  Avoiding this step is desirable
> because undertaking it causes well-documented problems.

That definition is already NOT current Fedora policy, see the policy on binary 
JARs (which I completely agree with, for that matter).

> We seem to have drifted off into bizarro world.  Fedora's choice of how
> to package Java impacts the issues here precisely nil.

Then how is this case different from that one? You still haven't answered that 
question, instead claiming it is "obvious".

> You seem to have some notions of ideological purity about what packages
> should contain and you're going to great argumentative lengths to ram
> those notions down fedora-devel's collective throat.  What's missing
> from your arguments is any characterization of a problem that gets
> solved when we do it Your Way.

Nicolas Mailhot answered that one pretty well.

> The guideline I've suggested (and apparently I'm not the first) is a
> response to a real problem: stuff is broken and it wouldn't be broken if
> the guideline had been followed.  You have not proposed an alternative
> solution to the problem.  Rather, your position seems to be that the
> breakage is simply acceptable.  Obviously, I disagree.  I think that
> because it can be avoided, it should be.

Then let's also avoid the breakage due to new GCC versions and just ship 
upstream binaries? (No, I'm not seriously suggesting that!)

> Indulging this question is beyond the scope of this thread.

It's not, the answer to that question is the premise for even considering your 
suggested guideline.

> The guideline I'm proposing operates within the current ideological
> framework, where patching files that happen to have been generated is
> perfectly socially acceptable.  If you would like to propose a guideline
> that changes that, feel free to do so; but please do have the courtesy
> to pursue it in a new thread.

What you're missing is that Fedora _already_ has guidelines requiring to build 
everything from source (which are enforced for Java and Mono stuff, for 
example), it's just that the autotools files are still considered "source", 
which they really aren't.

        Kevin Kofler




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