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

[Mike Frysinger]

On Wednesday 15 May 2013 15:25:31 Warren Young wrote:
> On 5/15/2013 11:20, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> > i understand the point you're making.  however, ~10 years of building
> > from source in Gentoo and doing this for every single build has shown
> > that in practice, it's irrelevant.
> 
> It's irrelevant *for* *Gentoo*.  Not all autoconfiscated source trees
> are in Gentoo.

... which is what this sub thread was focusing on, with the only slightly 
bigger picture being distro packaging behavior.  no, not *all* autotool based 
packages are in Gentoo, but we've got pretty good coverage for anything 
passably relevant (and then some).

> I wouldn't be surprised if there were an iceberg effect here: it could
> well be that ~90% of all source trees using the autotools aren't even
> publicly visible, much less incorporated into the major Linux distros.

then they're irrelevant to this sub thread.

> There's some self-selection bias going on here, too.  Software that
> fails to build in the Gentoo build system obviously won't get adopted
> into Gentoo, if no one bothers to try and fix the breakage.

obviously that's possible, but i'm fairly certain it's unlikely.  when things 
break w/Gentoo, our devs/users tend to file bugs.

even then, writing your own config.sub is not something to be taken lightly.  
the amount of blood/sweat/tears that have gone into maintaining that database 
dwarfs whatever tiny project random person is working on.  and even even then, 
the number of people who even understand htf autotools work let alone a tiny 
internal nuance like config.sub is fairly (if not extremely) esoteric.

if Gentoo blowing away your rinky dinky config.sub hack breaks your project, 
then take it as a sign that You're Doing It Wrong :).
-mike

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