how to patch configure.ac and not require autotools

[Michael J. Knox]

Jason L Tibbitts III wrote:
>>>>>>"TL" == Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora at leemhuis.info> writes:
> 
> 
> TL> I tend to think the "running auto* in spec files might break
> TL> sooner or later" is true, but how ofter does it break and is it
> TL> worth the hassle to create patches?
> 
> Could someone detail just how things get broken and what things we
> should be looking out for?  I'm reviewing a package now (aplus-fsf,
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=174021) that
> patches Makefile.am files all over the place and then calls the
> autotools.  This is a really old piece of software but once massaged a
> bit it puts everything in the proper places and runs fine.  I don't
> see any problem with what it's doing, and I don't understand why it
> would be any better to do a bunch of hacking just to avoid calling the
> autotools.

I asked about the use of autoreconf in IRC today and was told its up to 
the maintainers discreation as to weather its used or not. I have to use 
it in the ntop spec I am working with to help fix an rpath issue.

IMHO I think patching autogenrated files instead of the source files 
(*.am's etc) and regenrating them is a bit ass about face. If you have a 
real issue and refreshing the auto* files fixes it then it should be 
acceptable. Running the autotools because you can, should not be.

Michael