Instead of the current ad-hoc way of including portability and
replacement functions (things like mkdir, rmdir, strftime, etc.) in
Octave, I would like to start using functions from gnulib
(http://www.gnu.org/software/gnulib). By using gnulib, we should get
improved portability and in some cases better or newer versions of
some of the replacement functions that we are currently using.
To see what would be required, I started trying to modify Octave's
configure scripts to use gnulib, but quickly found that it is fairly
complex to use gnulib without also using automake.
I've resisted using automake in the past because it seemed that it
would be a fairly large job to convert Octave's existing build
environment. But at this point, I'm willing to give it a try just to
get gnulib working.
Switching to automake and using gnulib may mean some additional
disruption in building Octave during the transition. Some changes to
the way Octave is built from the Mercurial archive may be needed. At
the very least, you will need to have some way to get modules from
gnulib if you don't already have them. But the rules for this should
all be in the configure (or bootstrap/autogen.sh) script, so you
should really only need a network connection, and then only if you
don't already have the necessary modules.
Are there any strong objections to making this change?
Is anyone on the list an expert automake user who would be willing to
help with the transition?