ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

> Hello,
>
> Chris Marusich <cmmarusich@gmail.com> skribis:
>
>> Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> writes:
>>
>>> So, we still have a decision to make: whether to delete these generated
>>> files (possibly in a snippet) to avoid using pre-generated non-source
>>> files in our build.  I would be in favor of it.
>>>
>>> I'd like to hear opinions on this.
>
> I’d be in favor of removing these, especially since that seems to be an
> easy change, but…
>
>> Perhaps we can consider our existing packages as a precedent.  Many
>> packages include files in their source distribution that were
>> auto-generated by the Autotools.  For example, consider the "configure"
>> script that Autoconf generates.  Is there a significant difference
>> between the "configure" script and the "pre-generated non-source files"
>> you're talking about?
>
> Indeed, there’s a long tradition in GNU to ship generated code to
> facilitate bootstrapping.  There’s configure, Makefile.in, etc., and
> there’s also Bison- and Flex-generated files often.
>
> I have mixed feelings about this.  I think it’s great to be able to use
> these pre-generated files; our bootstrap graph would be much more
> complicated or even out of reach if we were to re-generate everything.
> OTOH, it’s true that this is the elephant in the room in terms of
> bootstrapping.
>
> Maybe it’s a can of worms we’d rather leave aside.  :-)
>
> Thoughts?

Given the profound silence on this topic, I am inclined to agree with
you that it's a can of worms we'd rather leave aside.  Therefore, I
think we should do whatever is most practical, so I am happy to defer to
Mark on this.  If it's easy to remove the auto-generated files, I see no
reason for us to avoid removing them.  If it's difficult to remove the
auto-generated files, I don't think we should bend over backwards to
remove them.

-- 
Chris