Why no autoreconf in dbus debian/rules?

[Ted Gould]

On Tue, 2010-03-23 at 13:37 +0200, Markku Savela wrote:
> The dbus debianized source seem to trust on upstream generated
> configure.in and other files.
> 
> I've to compile dbus with different configuration and would need to
> run autoreconf. It is chicken-and-egg problem, if I try to provide a
> patch to rules for automatic autoreconf, it really won't play nice
> with the usual quilt and debian/patches building system (can't
> remember exact reason, but just couldn't get it to work).
> 
> Having autoreconf in rules, would make life easier (and make
> unnecessary for distros to patch the generated files, for example
> Ubuntu karmic appears to patch the Makefile.in files) in their dbus...
> 
> So, could debianized source (maybe others) be changed to run
> "autoreconf -a -f -s" in dpkg-buildpackage or something?

I'm by no means a debian packaging expert, but when I've asked that
question before it has come back that the autotools suite traditionally
has caused breakage with packages as versions are changed.  So it is
best to stick with the version of the generated files the developer used
as, in theory, autotools would make it so those are compatible anywhere.

		--Ted


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