[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Bug report (PR#1375)

[Per I Mathisen <per@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 15 Apr 2002, Raimar Falke wrote:
> > I also tried the newest autoconf (2.53): It does not run.

Of course not. But I was surprised that it was autoheader that failed.

> > It's docs say there was a major design change after 2.13
> > and include an extra section about upgrading from 2.13.
>
> > IMHO the script should be updated to become usable for autoconf 2.50+
> > because I don't think it's acceptable for most users to downgrade their
> > autoconf to a "buggy design" version.

That is non-trivial because freeciv contains lots of custom made and
2.5x incompatible macros.

> Changing the script for 2.50+ is (major) work. It seem that Per is the
> only one who can make this at the moment. My opinion is that the vast
> majority of the installed versions are 2.13 (for example no Redhat
> version includes the new one). So we are not completely misguided.

RedHat seem to be dragging their feet. I believe the other distros have
gone over to 2.52 some time ago already. Debian ships with both versions,
and automagically uses the right version (I don't know how).

When I think about it, the right thing to do might be to supply two
versions of configure.in, say
        configure.ac-2.13
        configure.ac-2.52
and then let autogen.sh use the one that works (or maybe supply an
autogen.sh-2.52 too). I can quickly make a version for 2.52 as long as
nobody expects it work for the Xaw client on non-linux architectures
(which is where all the pain is).

Yours,
Per

"Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason."
 -- Sir John Harrington (1561-1612)