Nick Bowler wrote:
> If I distribute a release package, what I have tested is exactly what is
> in that package. If you start replacing different versions of m4 macros,
> or use some distribution-patched autoconf/automake/libtool or whatever,
> then this you have invalidated any and all release testing.
+1
Last month, I spent 2 days on prerelease testing of coreutils. If, after
downloading the carefully prepared tarball from ftp.gnu.org, the first
thing a distro does is to throw away the *.m4 files and regenerate the
configure script with their own one,
* It shows no respect for the QA work that the upstream developers have
put in.
* It increases the number of bug reports that reach upstream and yet
are caused by the distro.
* In the long run, the upstream maintainers will be less willing to
handle bug reports from users of this distro.
Bruno
