In article <Pine.GSO.4.10.9903101244130.5691-100000@einks2> you wrote:
> I also took some time to look into autoconf with friends and
> I feel that openssl could really benefit from autoconf rather
> than the current setup
That's true. Autoconf is a flexible system which would solve a lot of our
source tree problems. But Autoconf is not all you usually need. The best
source tree usually comes from hand-made Makefiles and not from Automake any
friends. That's why it's not easy to make such a transition. But the idea is
on my TODO list.
> (it would solve both the const and the
> prototype problems with little effort).
No, as Ben, I also don't see why Autoconf solves these problems. Autoconf can
test a lot, but what do you gain when you've to wrap those prototype stuff
with #ifdef XXX where XXX was defined by Autoconf. Nothing. No, Autoconf can
solve other problems like determining Big vs. Little endian, determine the
platform id, determine ELF vs. a.out, etc. But things like the const stuff
depend on the source itself.
> The only problem
> I see with autoconf at the moment is the amount of work required
> (learning the tools and setting up the autoconf config files).
> But, before going 1.0, would this be a 'nice' thing to do?
Learning the stuff is not the problem (at least I personally already know
those tools and already use them successfully on other projects). But the
problem is time: It causes a lot of time to convert the source tree into a
correctly setup Autoconf+Automake+Libtool+etc. tree. At least when you want to
do it in a _clean_ fashion (because doing a quick transition is always
possible, of course).
> One final thought: To ease binary distribution, shouldn't package
> building information (SUN pkg info, RPM specs, Debian...)
> be included in the source distribution? The building of the different
> packages could easily be included in makefile.
That's a problematic issue IMHO. I personally don't want this for several
reasons based on my experiences with these things, but I know that people
expect that we do this. Others should decide on this... ;-)
Ralf S. Engelschall
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.engelschall.com
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