From owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Fri May 20 06:56:18 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D055116A4CE for ; Fri, 20 May 2005 06:56:18 +0000 (GMT) Received: from mail.lovett.com (foo.lovett.com [67.134.38.158]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5C66E43D7E for ; Fri, 20 May 2005 06:56:18 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from ade@FreeBSD.org) Received: from hellfire.lovett.com ([67.134.38.149]) by mail.lovett.com with esmtpa (Exim 4.51 (FreeBSD)) id 1DZ1QQ-000Mn2-GZ; Thu, 19 May 2005 23:56:02 -0700 In-Reply-To: <20050519161204.GB87697@xor.obsecurity.org> References: <1116344389.10339.42.camel@msoffen.iso-ne.com> <20050518161015.GA94920@xor.obsecurity.org> <1116439290.4769.9.camel@msoffen.iso-ne.com> <20050519105216.dt9hta6z28k4o48g@netchild.homeip.net> <20050519160428.25a1e630.flynn@energyhq.es.eu.org> <1116511949.4994.27.camel@msoffen.iso-ne.com> <790a9fff05051907418391836@mail.gmail.com> <1116517862.5492.15.camel@msoffen.iso-ne.com> <20050519161204.GB87697@xor.obsecurity.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v730) X-Gpgmail-State: !signed Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Message-Id: <451A47DA-6B81-4581-8035-58489AF31238@FreeBSD.org> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Ade Lovett Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 23:56:06 -0700 To: Kris Kennaway X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.730) cc: ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Port: automake19-1.9.5 X-BeenThere: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting software to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 06:56:18 -0000 On May 19, 2005, at 09:12 , Kris Kennaway wrote: > If it would cause enough net simplification, maybe. It's a lot of > work to convert ports over though, so someone needs to want it enough > to do that work :-) Actually, it doesn't. One non-trivial problem associated with autotools is that a significant amount of other software automatically looks for, eg, automake, automake-1.9, in $PATH and if it finds it, sometimes modifies the way in which it builds itself. You very quickly run into a situation where other ports build, or not, as the case may be, depending on whether auto{conf,make}* are already installed. This "phantom" acquisition of dependencies causes no end of head-scratching when confronted with weird build errors. This is certain one of the bigger reasons why the ports versions of autotools install in the way that they do (as opposed to the gnu- variants which install without such suffixes, but in locations where they're not automatically picked up on by other pieces of software). Just another aspect of the fun and games to be had with these particular suites of automated building tools. -aDe