Modularization mailing list and initial strawman proposal

[Daniel Stone]

On Thu, Mar 24, 2005 at 05:50:26PM -0800, Jeremy C. Reed wrote:
> What about building an alternative to automake/autoconf/libtool that has
> our same license?

No.

> (I have heard many discuss that an improvement is needed.)

It is.

The problem is thus: there are some really bad points about imake (like
a total lack of interactivity and basic language primitives needed to
execute tests), but on the whole it's not a horrifically bad build
system.  The problems with it are several:
	a) no-one knows it, not necessarily because it's obtuse (so are
	   the inner workings of autotools, scons, or whatever's cool
	   this week), but because no-one else but us uses it;
	b) we have to maintain platform definitions, which is, to put it
	   bluntly, total crap.  it shouldn't be our job, that's the job
	   of the platform maintainers, who know it far better than us;
	c) no-one knows it;
	d) no-one knows it.

autotools has many advantages in terms of functionality, simplicity, and
having platform definitions maintained by people who know the platform
inside out; not us.  People feel comfortable working with autotools,
because it's familiar territory.  No-one feels comfortable with the
spaghetti imake horror we've backed ourselves into.

And, as for the licence, unfortunately the autoconf manual is not
available due to broken documentation generation, but from the automake
manual:
23 Distributing Makefile.ins

Automake places no restrictions on the distribution of the resulting
Makefile.ins. We still encourage software authors to distribute their work under
terms like those of the GPL, but doing so is not required to use Automake.

Some of the files that can be automatically installed via the --add-missing
switch do fall under the GPL. However, these also have a special exception
allowing you to distribute them with your package, regardless of the licensing
you choose. 


We don't *have* to work on the build system we use.  Other people do
that for us, and do a fine job.  It's not our concern.  It can be
freely redistributed under whatever the hell sort of licence you want,
meaning that people who have built themselves a completely GNU-free
system can use it just fine[0].  I don't see why the licence is
possibly an issue, especially when it has been repeatedly stated that
the licence of X code itself is not under any sort of question
whatsoever, and will remain just so for the forseeable future.

Daniel

[0]: I think there's BSD make compatibility, but I can't remember off
     the top of my head; if GNU make is required, then it is the only
     GNU dependency, and frankly you have trouble building any sort
     of coherent system with components newer than 1976 without it
     anyway.
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