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

[Enrico Weigelt]

> (*) While this can (and did) happen just by changes in the package
> itself,
> automagically toggling configure-output is severly raising the risk.

ACK. Build processes should be as predictable and deterministic as possible.
Optimally, it should be a function (in mathematical terms) with as few
parameters as possible.

Things like automatic dependency switching - IOW: automatically switching
on/off certain features or linking in certain libraries just by their
precense in the building system - is quite dangerous as soon as that
build result is put to another system. You neither can rely on a specific
feature set (installing or removing one library in the building system
may magically change the build output), nor can you know which libraries
are actually required at runtime (without deeper analysis of the actual
build output). Such behaviour is a nightmare for distro maintainers.


cu