rpm and config.{guess, sub} (was [aarch64 bugs] dpkg: Does not support aarch64 in f19 and rawhide bug #925276)

[Alec Leamas]

On 2013-06-17 16:43, Jerry James wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 2:59 AM, Björn Esser <bjoern.esser at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I completely agree to this. Using `autoreconf -fi` in %build or %prep
>> should be mandatory in packages using autotools. This will surely avoid
>> lots of possible problems caused by just injecting config.{guess,sub} by
>> %configure.
> That would only work if the autotools had perfect backwards
> compatibility.  They don't.  I maintain multiple packages where
> "autoreconf -fi" with modern autotools fails due to use of obsolete
> macros.
> --
> Jerry James
> http://www.jamezone.org/
Isn't the proper solution then to patch the config files to get rid of 
the obsolete macros? Such patches should certainly be acceptable upstream.

That said, this and related questions have been discussed in several 
threads over the years. The sad fact is that it hasn't been possible to 
find an agreement how to cope with autotools and that we thus havn't 
much about them in the guidelines.

  What are the chances finding common ground now?

--alec