[Dnsmasq-discuss] [PATCH] Add support for autotools

[Dan Williams]

On Tue, 2012-09-11 at 14:27 +0800, microcai wrote:
> 2012/9/10 Simon Kelley <simon at thekelleys.org.uk>:
> > On 09/09/12 06:57, Cristian Rodríguez wrote:
> >> El dom 09 sep 2012 02:03:11 CLST, Shantanu Gadgil escribió:
> >>> If this is done, won't the autotools chain will be a prerequisite for
> >>> dnsmasq to be built.
> >>>
> >>> Maybe OK for Linux OSes ... not necessary for other platforms/OSes
> >>> (think Solaris, AIX, and even more obscure, etc).
> >>> Why the overhead?!?
> >>>
> >>> I really like the *really really simple* Makefile based build and not
> >>> at all in favour of this!
> >>
> >>
> >> This **really really simple** makefiles requires constant patching and
> >> maintenance for distributions, in short they are a pain in the ass.
> >
> > It does? How come I'm not seeing these patches fed back upstream then?
> > As the maintainer of the Debian (and therefore Ubuntu) packaging, I
> > don't have to patch the makefile.
> >
> >>
> >> Linux, BSDs, Solaris have automake/autoconf..etc and I could not care
> >> less about obscure systems. what matters is  what most people use.
> >>
> >
> > I wonder how this affects building on Android? Numerically, these days
> > that's probably the most important dnsmasq distribution channel.
> 
> if you have android SDK, then you have
> 
> 1) a bash
> 2) a make
> 3) a gcc
> 
> and that's all required by release tarball generated by make dist-bzip2
> 
> advanages over plain Makefile
> 
> 1) easy cross-compile
> 2) easy feature checking
> 3) easy optional building
> 4) easy install
> 5) constant with other software releases.
> 
> SEE, if I want to use different install prefix, i have to change Makefile
> SEE, if I want to use different CFLAGS, i have to change Makefile
> SEE, if I want to use different LDFLAGS, i have to change Makefile

Fedora does some sed magic to the makefile and to config.h to change
some install paths and turn on the D-Bus interface.  And while the main
makefile apparently handles RPM_OPT_FLAGS for you (which is somewhat
odd, and could be removed if using autotools) that's not handled
automatically by the contrib makefile.

So yeah, distros would be able to package dnsmasq more easily if it did
support autotools.  Weigh that against whatever
distaste/mistrust/dislike part of the userbase has of it.

There's definitely stuff not to like about autotools, but it's pretty
much the most understood and least-icky of all the other build systems
out there (cmake, SCons, etc).  The worst part about it is libtool, no
doubt...

> but with autotools, all you need is have --prefix=stuff and
> CFLAGS=stuff LDFLAGS=stuff passed to ./configure
> 
> the only short comings that autotools brings us is
> 
> *SOME IDIOT DON'T UNDERSTAND AUTOTOOLS*

Not a very constructive comment...

Dan

> 
> >
> > It would have been useful to have talked to us before you embarked on
> > this work: it's a lot of effort to go to without being sure it's useful,
> > but I shall do my best to determine if it improves dnsmasq, without
> > being swayed by the sunk-cost.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Simon.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Dnsmasq-discuss mailing list
> > Dnsmasq-discuss at lists.thekelleys.org.uk
> > http://lists.thekelleys.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dnsmasq-discuss
> 
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