Re: [PATCHES] gnu: linux-libre: Update to 4.16

[Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net>]

Chris Marusich <cmmarusich@gmail.com> writes:

> 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.

I agree that this can be a case by case decision.

In general I’d like *all* generated files to be rebuilt from source,
including build system files.  Since this can be problematic I’d adopt a
pragmatic approach of removing and rebuiling generated files when it is
clearly feasible.

For things that are really difficult and seemingly hopeless we have the
bootstrappable project.

--
Ricardo