[Fedora-packaging] %makeinstall - must not or should not use it?

[Toshio Kuratomi]

On Fri, 2006-08-18 at 10:53 -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
> > "Fedora's RPM includes a %makeinstall macro but it must NOT be used when
>                                                      ^^^^
> 
> "should"?
> 
"must" was intentional.  Let's see what the arguments pro/con "should"
are.

> > make install DESTDIR=%{buildroot} will work.  %makeinstall is a kludge
> > that can work with broken Makefiles that don't make use of the DESTDIR
> > variable but it has the following potential issues:"
> 
> What if it doesn't have those issues in a particular case?
> 
It must still use make install DESTDIR=%{buildroot}.  When reviewing the
package you have to assume that %makeinstall has broken something and
check for problems that could result from that.  Theoretically, the
packager has performed those checks as well so there's a lot more work
involved with using %makeinstall than from using DESTDIR.

> Also, I'm not sure it's particularly fair to use the term "broken" for
> makefiles which don't include a DESTDIR variable. As far as I'm aware,
> that's not a _requirement_ for a makefile -- just a handy convention.
> 
That's a good criticism.  I hesitated over using broken or old and chose
the least inaccurate.  Do you have a better word or phrase to describe
them?  Non-compliant with GNU standards for Makefiles is accurate but
overly limiting in scope.  Maybe simply removing the adjective
describing Makefiles altogether?

-Toshio
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