[libvirt] Can we make sc_copyright_check non-fatal?

[Cole Robinson]

On 10/08/2013 05:48 PM, Eric Blake wrote:
> On 10/08/2013 03:39 PM, Cole Robinson wrote:
>> The copyright date syntax check is a source of frustration for me:
>>
>> - It fails on old maint branches.
> 
> In general, 'make syntax-check' is NOT guaranteed to work on maint
> branches, nor is it worth trying to make it work there.  If anything,
> the best thing to do would be figuring out how to patch 'make
> syntax-check' to be a complete no-op on maint branches and only operate
> on a (descendant of) the master branch, precisely because out-of-order
> backports to maint branches makes it practically impossible to guarantee
> that we can consistently meet whatever style future development on the
> master branch decides is now in vogue.
> 

Agreed on that for the most part. It can still be beneficial to run,
particularly after a hairy backport though, and it's frustrating to be blocked
on something like a copyright date. But you're right that we can never
guarantee it will continue to work.

>>
>> - It pokes into non git managed directories in $(srcdir).
> 
> That's probably a bug, and we should be able to fix it upstream in
> gnulib.  Syntax checkers should be able to be limited to just git files.
>  I guess the idea was that it checks non-managed files to ensure a
> tarball doesn't have generated files with a broken copyright date, but
> there's probably a better way to do that.
> 

That's my main complaint, so if it's fixed, I'll be satisfied. Thanks.

But really any test that is basically going to hinder normal work by demanding
a gnulib update on January 1st just seems ill advised IMO.

- Cole