Re: [libvirt] [virt-tools-list] [PATCH] add AM_MAINTAINER_MODE macro

On 10/15/2010 05:29 AM, Guido Günther wrote: > Hi, > On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 04:46:23PM +0200, Guido Günther wrote: Odd - I cannot find the original mail, even when looking in the archives: https://www.redhat.com/archives/libvir-list/2010-September/date.html

>> Hi, >> Please add the AM_MAINTAINER_MODE macro to configure.ac for >> virt-manager. This allows downstream distributions to disable this >> feature so no autotools are required to build the package. The patch >> doesn't change behaviour for upstream: >> >> http://www.gnu.org/software/hello/manual/automake/maintainer_002dmode.html >> The automake manual recommends against maintainer mode: http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/automake.html#maintainer_002d... > Several years ago François Pinard pointed out several arguments > against this AM_MAINTAINER_MODE macro. Most of them relate to > insecurity. By removing dependencies you get non-dependable builds: > changes to sources files can have no effect on generated files and > this can be very confusing when unnoticed. He adds that security > shouldn't be reserved to maintainers (what --enable-maintainer-mode > suggests), on the contrary. If one user has to modify a Makefile.am, > then either Makefile.in should be updated or a warning should be > output (this is what Automake uses missing for) but the last thing you > want is that nothing happens and the user doesn't notice it (this is > what happens when rebuild rules are disabled by AM_MAINTAINER_MODE). > > Jim Meyering, the inventor of the AM_MAINTAINER_MODE macro was swayed > by François's arguments, and got rid of AM_MAINTAINER_MODE in all of > his packages. Furthermore, downstream distributions should not require autotools to build a package if they do not make any changes to any of the configure.ac/Makefile.am source files in the first place; and conversely, if you ARE patching those files, then you WANT to rerun the autotools and not silently disable them. >> AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([-Wno-portability]) >> +AM_MAINTAINER_MODE([enable]) >> > > Any chance this gets applied? I'm very reluctant to make this change without a better demonstration why you think it is needed, and only after exhausting other attempts to fix the root cause problem that you are really hitting.