distro-configs files, autogen.sh options, defaults etc

[Bjoern Michaelsen]

On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 10:24:33AM +0300, Tor Lillqvist wrote:
> From a high-level point of view, what is the intent:

Provocative reply: Keep backwards compatibility with libreoffice-build/go-oo
concepts. They were migrated over from there.

> - Should a new, naïve contributor be able to run just ./autogen.sh
> without any options and, assuming his platform is a reasonably well
> supported one, get a working, perhaps minimal (i.e. quicker/easier to
> build) build? (I think YES.)

Yes.

> - Or are you always expected to pass a --with-distro=YourOS switch? (I
> think NO.)

Indeed, thats how it should be.

> - Surely only official TDF builds are supposed to use
> --with-vendor=The Document Foundation ? (Sure, we can't *prevent*
> random people from passing whatever they want as --with-vendor, but I
> mean we don't want random buillds that somebody might give to a few
> friends, or offer to a wider public, to claim to be from TDF, right?)
> (I think INDEED.)

Right.

> Currentlly how configure.in and the distro-configs files work is a bit
> confusing, and doesn't really give an impression of any clear overall
> policy regarding the above points.

Agreed. I think, to name this ./autogen.sh switch and the configs for what they
do could help a lot here. That means:

 rename --with-distro to --with-preset
 rename LibreOfficeAndroid.conf to TDFReleaseAndroid.conf etc.

possibly we could also add something like:

 UbuntuDev.conf
 FedoraDev.conf
 ...

containing sane --with-system-switches and --disable-mozilla/disable-binfilter
etc.

> If I understand correctly, the distro-configs files should not contain
> any such --enable / --disable switches that are *required* for the
> build to succeed on the platform in question. Right? So for instance
> the --disable-cairo-canvas should not be in LibreOfficeMacOSX.conf and
> LibreOfficeWin32.conf, but instead the enable_cairo_canvas should be
> hardcoded as "no" always for MacOSX and Windows?

In theory yes, in practice you will risk an endless bikeshedding fight over
some enable/disable switch defaults. Having these .conf files might help a bit
there.

Best,

Bjoern