Re: Merging bignum to master

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

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Eli said:

  > The autoconf manual says about --enable: "They should only cause parts
  > of the program to be built rather than left out."

Yes, but that is a superficial way to look at it.  The real intended
meaning of --enable is to include a feature, or support for some
feature.  So --enable option ought to be named after the feature it
enables, NOT after some piece of code.

If we stick to that, the substantial difference between --enable and
--with will be clear, so people will not confuse them.

  > That being said, the distinction between --with-FOO and --enable-FOO has long 
  > been a confusing area of the GNU coding standards -- as witnessed by the other 
  > packages you're thinking about.

Is that because some cases have been handled erroneously?  Or is it
because some cases don't really fit into either --with or --enable?

If the latter, I think we need to take the bull by the horns
and work out a good way to handle those cases, rather than forcing them
into one of two slots which they do not fit.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)