On Sun, 12 Aug 2012, Stefano Lattarini wrote:
The API to specify the formats of distribution tarballs has been changed
completely, in a BACKWARD-INCOMPATIBLE way.
Instead of using the various 'dist-*' automake options, the developer is
now expected to specify the default formats of its distribution tarballs
with the special variable AM_DIST_FORMATS; for example, where once would
have been:
AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([dist-bzip2 dist-zip])
now it must be:
AM_DIST_FORMATS = gzip bzip2 zip
and similarly, where once would have been:
AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS = no-dist-gzip dist-bzip2 dist-xz
now is it simply:
AM_DIST_FORMATS = bzip2 xz
This all sounds like goodness to me. Moving to Automake-NG will
clearly be a "port" for any significant project. Hopefully you are
recording porting-notes so that people know what to look for and
change.
The old way of dealing with tarballs was broken because it was
inflexible and therefore not as "free" as it should be. It caused
tension among free software developers (e.g. the 'lzip' discussion).
Automake can not anticipate all of the possible output formats that a
package may want to create. For example, my project also wants to be
able to produce 'srpm' format as well as a '7z' format.
Bob
--
Bob Friesenhahn
[email protected], http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/
