Re: [Groff] new automake system

[Blake McBride]

On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 10:23 AM, Blake McBride <address@hidden> wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 12:09 AM, Werner LEMBERG <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>>
>> > IMO, if the new make system requires a download of something that is
>> > already built and installed on my machine, then the new make system
>> > is significantly worse than using the standard ./configure.
>>
>> What Bertrand is working on affects the bootstrapping process, this
>> is, building everything from the `git' repository.  Yes, this now
>> needs a lot more of resources, at the advantage of much easier
>> maintainance for the developer.
>
>
>
> Making it more dependent on versions of other software that are
> _currently_ available on the Internet means that older copies of groff will
> no longer build when those other repositories have moved, are no longer
> available, or old versions of those libraries are not where expected.  We
> are becoming increasingly dependent on a moving target.  ./configure had a
> much less problem with this.  This is a big issue.
>

Except for _actively_ maintained software, this new build method increases
the software fragility.  This is bad.


>
>
>
>
>> However, it doesn't affect the
>> end-user build from the created tarball, which will be exactly the
>> same as before.
>>
>>
>>     Werner
>>
>
>