RE: please bring back program suffix for autoconf bin files

[Dan Kegel]

Your argument amounts to "don't trust anything on the platform",
which is good advice in some situations, and overkill in others.

I believe making "autoconf-2.13" the standard name for invoking
the platform's autoconf-2.13 is the Right Thing to Do.  If
individual users like Mr. Dickey or me choose to ignore the
platform's autoconf-2.13 and use our own, that's our right and 
privilege, but we shouldn't force that effort down everyone's
throats.  

- Dan

-----Original Message-----
From: address@hidden
To: address@hidden
Sent: 03.03.2003 16:45
Subject: Re: please bring back program suffix for autoconf bin files

In article <address@hidden>,
Dan Kegel  <address@hidden> wrote:
>Sure, I could, and maybe I will.  But all I need is access to
>a recent autoconf side by side with the old autoconf-2.13.
>All the distros make autoconf available as /usr/bin/autoconf,
>but the name they use for autoconf-2.13 varies:

In addition to the names, how much variation is there in other changes
from the base system?  If Debian and RedHat have different sets of
patches
applied, there is still a good possibility that you are not going to
get the same and/or compatible configure as output, which could lead to
annoying and difficult to find bugs (works find on MY machine!).

You still have to mandate a well known version + patches that is used
on all platforms and ignore the system supplied one.

One example of this is, I believe, Tom Dickey's local installations of
autoconf.  If I remember correctly, he has local patches applied to his
autoconf installation which he uses to build packages that he maintains.
It also makes it pretty difficult for others to autoconf those same
packages using stock autoconf.  You have to get his patches.

I'm not certain if this is still true, but I think the same issue
_could_
happen with any vendors installed autoconf.

mrc
-- 
     Mike Castle      address@hidden
www.netcom.com/~dalgoda/
    We are all of us living in the shadow of Manhattan.  -- Watchmen
fatal ("You are in a maze of twisty compiler features, all different");
-- gcc