[XForms] Re: [PATCH] simplifying local.h: the trivial bits

[Jean-Marc Lasgouttes]

>>>>> "Angus" == Angus Leeming <angus.leeming at btopenworld.com> writes:

Angus> Let's try and make a road plan for a 1.1 release. I guess we
Angus> should address the problems with the autotools that Laurence
Angus> Marks described.

Yes. I have not looked at that seriously yet.

One thing I noticed is that we lack an INSTALL file (to be taken from
autoconf). 

The file Copyright should maybe be included in some other file (and
the reference to COPYING changed to COPYING.LIB). The copyrights
should be changed to include at least you (and me) (also in
lib/version.c).


Angus> Here I have Red Hat 8 which comes with automake 1.6.3, autoconf
Angus> 2.53 and libtool 1.4.2.

We should probably pick something newer...

Angus> I find that if I remove depcomp and the config.*, then
Angus> automake, autoconf shove in new versions. Great. However, if I
Angus> remove libtool.m4 and run libtoolize, I do do not get a new
Angus> version of libtool.m4. I guess, therefore that it is no longer
Angus> needed?

The libtool documentation says:

  When you invoke the libtoolize program (see section 5.4.1 Invoking
  libtoolize), it will tell you where to find a definition of
  AC_PROG_LIBTOOL. If you use Automake, the aclocal program will
  automatically add AC_PROG_LIBTOOL support to your configure script.

  Nevertheless, it is advisable to include a copy of `libtool.m4' in
  `acinclude.m4', so that, even if `aclocal.m4' and `configure' are
  rebuilt for any reason, the appropriate libtool macros will be used.
  The alternative is to hope the user will have a compatible version of
  `libtool.m4' installed and accessible for aclocal. This may lead to
  weird errors when versions don't match.

So we should keep a libtool.m4.

Angus> Here is the patch. Wa d'ya think? Angus

I'd say let's refine it a bit first.

Angus> NB, reading on the web, it appears that others have added
Angus> libtoolize to autogen.sh
Angus> http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-devel-list/2002-September/msg00015.html

If you look at the autoconf repository, you will even find out that
the have special makefile targets to update all these files
automatically from the gnu ftp site. I am not sure whether we want to
go to such extreme methods, though.

JMarc