[Fedora-packaging] %makeinstall - must not or should not use it?

[Paul Howarth]

Till Maas wrote:
> Hiyas,
> 
> the Packaging Guidelines contradict itself about the usage of %makeinstall
> 
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Guidelines#head-fcaf3e6fcbd51194a5d0dbcfbdd2fcb7791dd002
> 
> The headline says "Why the %makeinstall macro should not be used" and the 
> first sentence says "RPM, as included in Fedora, includes a %makeinstall 
> macro, but you must NOT use this macro in Fedora packages."
> 
> It seems to be used by a lot of maintainers, so is this just a should not or 
> is this another candidate for a major specfile-cleanup project?

Whoever wrote this text misrepresents the conclusion of the discussion 
that lead to its inclusion I think.

"make DESTDIR=%{buildroot} install" should be *preferred* when it works, 
but there are times when %makeinstall works and there is no DESTDIR 
support in a package's Makefiles, so writing this as a "must not" as it 
is at the moment is just daft IMHO.

Paul.