how to patch configure.ac and not require autotools

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

Am Sonntag, den 11.06.2006, 07:43 -0500 schrieb Rex Dieter:
> Dan Horák wrote:
> > Hello,
> > 
> > I need to patch configure.ac so it doesn't explicitely add '-s' to
> > LDFLAGS (see
> > https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=194782). From a
> > discussion started in
> > http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-extras-list/2005-October/msg01545.html it is forbidden to use autotools during the build process and it suggests to patch configure and the other generated files too. But in my situation the only files that differ are configure.ac and configure. And after applying the patch their timestamps are set to the current time and because other files (Makefile.am, config.h, ...) depend on them, they want to be regenerated. The whole package seem buildable without the autotools, but with some not very nice messages about missing automake, autoconf, etc in the buildlog.
> 
> I guess I missed the conclusion that using auto* tools is absolutely
> forgidden.  AFAIK, it's not in the PackagingGuidelines, and there are
> certainly valid cases where their use is warranted (this may be one of
> them).  I'd suggest simply patching things and
> BuildRequires: automake autoconf
> and be done with it.

Yes, it's not forbidden afaik. And there is no general agreement how to
solve things like that; some people say "running auto* in spec files is
okay" while others say "run auto* locally, create patches, check if it
works and include those in the rpm because running auto* in spec files
might break sooner or later".

I tend to think the "running auto* in spec files might break sooner or
later" is true, but how ofter does it break and is it worth the hassle
to create patches?

CU
thl
-- 
Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora at leemhuis.info>