[Nix-dev] [***SPAM***] Depending on Autoconf, Automake, and Libtool

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello!

I just upgraded GNU Autoconf and Automake, which, as I saw Hydra go and
rebuild all of KDE because libmng depends on those, inspired me this rant.

Golden Rule:

  Never ever add a dependency on Autoconf, Automake, or Libtool, unless
  you’re confident that you cannot do otherwise at all.

The point of these tools is precisely that they don’t need to be present
when installing from a tarball (unlike CMake, for instance.)

When a package’s build system needs to be patched, we must try hard to
patch generated files, such as ‘Makefile.in’ or ‘configure’, to avoid
having to depend on the autotools.


Back to libmng: its tarball appears to lack ‘configure’ & co., hence the
dependency.  Upstream should be taught about the tools they use, and in
particular ‘make dist’.  Updating Autoconf & co. should not entail a KDE
rebuild, ever.

</rant>  :-)

Thanks,
Ludo’.