hulahop autotools seems broken

[tomeu]

Jonas Smedegaard reports:

The autotools shipped with hulahop 0.4.9 seems broken.

 * The option --disable-maintainer-mode is unsupported
 * libtool fails, seemingly treating compile flags as build options

I have worked around it for now in the Debian packaging by regenerating
autotools, but ideally it should be fixed upstream.

As a related note, I noticed (because I now keep close track of *all*
licensing info. including autogenerated files) that the autotools files
shipped do not always progress: sometimes (I believe it was with
sugar-toolkit but might be another core library) a newer release ship
with older autotools files (e.g. not shipping the - funny in our context
- - m4/ltsugar.mk file).

[jonas]

Replying to tomeu:

* The option --disable-maintainer-mode is unsupported

adding AM_MAINTAINER_MODE to configure.ac fixes this.

More info here:  http://www.gnu.org/software/hello/manual/automake/maintainer_002dmode.html

That page also mentions why you might not want to use that macro, but read on...

* libtool fails, seemingly treating compile flags as build options

Updating autotools (using autorecond, relibtoolize or whatever) should fix this.

I suspect that the problem is triggered when you use an older libtool (1.5.26) and
a distro uses a newer one (currently 2.2.6a in Debian unstable) and AM_MAINTAINER_MODE
is not possible to disable.

In other words, I see this as a good example of why it makes sense to use
AM_MAINTAINER_MODE: It helps fixate source for distributors.

As a related note, I noticed (because I now keep close track of *all*
licensing info. including autogenerated files) that the autotools files
shipped do not always progress: sometimes (I believe it was with
sugar-toolkit but might be another core library) a newer release ship
with older autotools files (e.g. not shipping the - funny in our context
- - m4/ltsugar.mk file).

This is "fixed" by coordinating among developers to consistently use recent autotools
when releasing tarballs.

[jonas]

Other packages, like "sugar", lack AM_MAINTAINER_MODE too.

[tomeu]

Replying to jonas:

Replying to tomeu:

* The option --disable-maintainer-mode is unsupported

adding AM_MAINTAINER_MODE to configure.ac fixes this.

More info here:  http://www.gnu.org/software/hello/manual/automake/maintainer_002dmode.html

That page also mentions why you might not want to use that macro, but read on...

* libtool fails, seemingly treating compile flags as build options

Updating autotools (using autorecond, relibtoolize or whatever) should fix this.

autogen.sh won't work for this?

I suspect that the problem is triggered when you use an older libtool (1.5.26) and
a distro uses a newer one (currently 2.2.6a in Debian unstable) and AM_MAINTAINER_MODE
is not possible to disable.

In other words, I see this as a good example of why it makes sense to use
AM_MAINTAINER_MODE: It helps fixate source for distributors.

Ok, have checked some GNOME modules and all use it, so I guess it's of use for packagers and will add it to our modules.

As a related note, I noticed (because I now keep close track of *all*
licensing info. including autogenerated files) that the autotools files
shipped do not always progress: sometimes (I believe it was with
sugar-toolkit but might be another core library) a newer release ship
with older autotools files (e.g. not shipping the - funny in our context
- - m4/ltsugar.mk file).

This is "fixed" by coordinating among developers to consistently use recent autotools
when releasing tarballs.

[erikos]

The maintainer mode has been pushed.

94266b8b (Tomeu Vizoso 2009-06-17 19:18:59 +0200 22) AM_MAINTAINER_MODE

[erikos]

I guess this fixes this ticket. Feel free to reopen if not.