Hey Jeff, as said I'd be in favor of updating. This would get rid of some of the tests in autogen, speeding up things.
Regards, Rainer On Wednesday 10 March 2010 12:07:56 pm Jeff Squyres wrote: > Brian and I chatted about this in person -- he doesn't have too strong of > an opinion here. > > We checked versions shipped in RHEL: > > RHEL4: AC 2.59, AM 1.9.2, LT 1.5.6 > RHEL5: AC 2.59, AM 1.9.2, LT 1.5.22 > > Meaning: they're both really ancient. > > I personally don't mind forcing developers to have more modern versions > because we're a fairly small group of people (vs. users). Does anyone > else have an opinion here? > > On Feb 25, 2010, at 1:55 PM, Barrett, Brian W wrote: > > I think our last set of minimums was based on being able to use RHEL4 out > > of the box. Updating to whatever ships with RHEL5 probably makes sense, > > but I think that still leaves you at a LT 1.5.x release. Being higher > > than that requires new Autotools, which seems like asking for trouble. > > > > Brian > > > > On Feb 25, 2010, at 4:47 PM, Jeff Squyres wrote: > > > WHAT: Bump minimum required versions of GNU autotools up to modern > > > versions. I suggest the following, but could be talked down a version > > > or two: Autoconf: 2.65 > > > Automake: 1.11.1 > > > Libtool: 2.2.6b > > > > > > WHY: Stop carrying patches and workarounds for old versions. > > > > > > WHERE: autogen.sh, make_dist_tarball, various Makefile.am's, > > > configure.ac, *.m4. > > > > > > WHEN: No real rush. Somewhere in 1.5.x. > > > > > > TIMEOUT: Friday March 5, 2010 > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > I was debugging a complex Automake timestamp issue yesterday and > > > discovered that it was caused by the fact that we are patching an old > > > version of libtool.m4. It took a little while to figure out both the > > > problem and an acceptable workaround. During this process, I noticed > > > that autogen.sh still carries patches to fix bugs in some *really* old > > > versions of Libtool (e.g., 1.5.22). Hence, I am send this RFC to > > > increase the minimum required versions. > > > > > > Keep in mind: > > > > > > 1. This ONLY affects developers. Those who build from tarballs don't > > > even need to have the Autotools installed. 2. Autotool patches should > > > always be pushed upstream. We should only maintain patches for things > > > that have been pushed upstream but have not yet been released. 3. We > > > already have much more recent Autotools requirements for official > > > distribution tarballs; see the chart here: > > > > > > http://www.open-mpi.org/svn/building.php > > > > > > Specifically: although official tarballs require recent Autotools, we > > > allow developers to use much older versions. Why are we still > > > carrying around this old kruft? Does some developer out there have a > > > requirement to use older Autotools? > > > > > > If not, this RFC proposes to only allow recent versions of the > > > Autotools to build Open MPI. I believe there's reasonable m4 these > > > days that can make autogen/configure/whatever abort early if the > > > versions are not new enough. This would allow us, at a minimum, to > > > drop some of the libtool patches we're carrying. There may be some > > > Makefile.am workarounds that are no longer necessary, too. > > > > > > There's no real rush on this; if this RFC passes, we can set a > > > concrete, fixed date some point in the future where we switch over to > > > requiring new versions. This should give everyone plenty of time to > > > update if you need to, etc. > > > > > > -- > > > Jeff Squyres > > > jsquy...@cisco.com > > > For corporate legal information go to: > > > http://www.cisco.com/web/about/doing_business/legal/cri/ > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > devel mailing list > > > de...@open-mpi.org > > > http://www.open-mpi.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/devel > > > > -- > > Brian W. Barrett > > Dept. 1423: Scalable System Software > > Sandia National Laboratories > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > devel mailing list > > de...@open-mpi.org > > http://www.open-mpi.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/devel > -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rainer Keller, PhD Tel: +1 (865) 241-6293 Oak Ridge National Lab Fax: +1 (865) 241-4811 PO Box 2008 MS 6164 Email: kel...@ornl.gov Oak Ridge, TN 37831-2008 AIM/Skype: rusraink
