Hi Bob, thanks for the feedback. On 08/13/2012 04:11 PM, Bob Friesenhahn wrote: > 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. > Yep; so far, it's in the NG-NEWS file. Eventually, if that file grows too much, we might want to consider turning it in a real "porting" or "transition" manual (Texinfo and all). We'll see.
> The old way of dealing with tarballs was broken because it was > inflexible and therefore not as "free" as it should be. > Note that my set of patches doesn't yet offer any public API for the addition of new distribution format; but the new form of the codebase should at least make that very easy to add (it's mostly a matter of changing the name of few so far internal-only variables, and adding the proper documentation). > 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. > Heartily agreed. > For example, my project also wants to be able to produce 'srpm' > format as well as a '7z' format. > That could be a nice test bed for the API, if you want to become an early Automake-NG adopter ;-) Regards, Stefano
