From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: New build process? Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2011 22:58:01 -0400 Message-ID: References: <20110726184220.GA6390@acm.acm> <87bowg6fre.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <4E2F2084.7070001@gmail.com> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1311735493 19024 80.91.229.12 (27 Jul 2011 02:58:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2011 02:58:13 +0000 (UTC) Cc: david.reitter@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Daniel Colascione Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Jul 27 04:58:08 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([140.186.70.17]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1QluJz-0000ep-40 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 27 Jul 2011 04:58:07 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:48790 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QluJy-0003h2-LX for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 26 Jul 2011 22:58:06 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:44368) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QluJv-0003gm-Ug for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 26 Jul 2011 22:58:04 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QluJu-0006jZ-KC for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 26 Jul 2011 22:58:03 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([140.186.70.10]:44596) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QluJu-0006jV-Ii for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 26 Jul 2011 22:58:02 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QluJt-0008SP-RQ; Tue, 26 Jul 2011 22:58:02 -0400 In-reply-to: <4E2F2084.7070001@gmail.com> (message from Daniel Colascione on Tue, 26 Jul 2011 13:16:04 -0700) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-Received-From: 140.186.70.10 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:142336 Archived-At: Sure, but having to run autogen.sh on a project that's just been checked out of version control is also very common in the free software world, and our actual source tarballs do contain pre-built autoconf scripts. The problem with a self-replacing configure script is that, as you mentioned, it'd be hard to tell bzr to version the placeholder script, but ignore the generated one; solving this problem by using a nonstandard name for the generated `configure' script would be surprising. I think our current approach is fine. We could call the current configuration script `configure-internal'. Then have a small `configure' script that checks whether the `configure-internal' file exists and is up to date, and if not, generates it. Then it would run `configure-internal'. This would DTRT in all cases, wouldn't it? -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation 51 Franklin St Boston MA 02110 USA www.fsf.org www.gnu.org Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software. Use free telephony http://directory.fsf.org/category/tel/