Re: [PATCH] more portable bootstrap procedure

[Jim Meyering]

Ralf Wildenhues <address@hidden> wrote:
> * Jim Meyering wrote on Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 01:09:10PM CET:
>> Ralf Wildenhues <address@hidden> wrote:
>> >
>> > There is one question I have on this: coreutils requires 'tar', my patch
>> > will allow $TAR as GNU tar.  However, Automake's macros will honor
>> > $AMTAR only, not $TAR.  Is this where tar is used, or are there other
>> > instances I am not aware of?  If yes, should I fix check_versions to
>> > check $AMTAR instead of $TAR?
>
>> Whichever you prefer is fine with me.  I use neither.
>
> Well, why is tar then listed as a build prerequisite in bootstrap.conf?
> Have you had a bad experience with non-GNU tar in 'make dist'?

Personally, I'd like tar to honor the TAR_OPTIONS envvar,
as set in GNUmakefile.  But that's useful only when creating
a distribution tarball, and even then, it's not critical.

>> The rest of those changes look fine and passed a smoke test,
>> so I'll push it (but without the Signed-off-by line) unless
>
> You don't use Signed-off-by for coreutils?  Why not?

Adding a "Signed-off-by: NAME" line is redundant when
Author: already lists that same NAME.

>> you want to make further changes.
>
> Well, yes, depending on your answers to above, either remove the 'tar'
> line from bootstrap.conf, or add a line like
>   test "$appvar" = TAR && appvar=AMTAR
>
> to check_versions and s/TAR/AMTAR/ in usage.
>
> Cheers, and thanks for the quick review,
> Ralf