Re: [RFC] getting rid of the config.guess/sub problem when bootstrapping new ports/systems

[Russ Allbery]

Adrian Bunk <address@hidden> writes:

> One problem is that in new upstream versions of
> autoconf/automake/libtool there are sometimes slight incompatibilities,
> and you end up with shipping many different versions of each of these
> tools (even today Debian already ships 5 different versions of
> autoconf).

> E.g. putting automake 1.13 [1] as automake package into Debian would 
> then require updating thousands of packages just for getting the whole 
> archive to build again.

This is a lot of work, yes.  But personally I think it's valuable work
that we shouldn't shy away from, and with which we can often help
upstream.  We do the same thing each time a new g++ is released; I don't
think there's been a major g++ release that hasn't required some patches
to one of the C++ packages I maintain.

(autoconf-dickey is a separate matter; at this point, I think it's best to
treat that as a permanent fork.)

-- 
Russ Allbery (address@hidden)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>