[Mesa-dev] Lets talk about autotools

[Dylan Baker]

Quoting Emil Velikov (2018-12-03 07:54:38)
> Hi all,
> 
> On Thu, 29 Nov 2018 at 17:44, Emil Velikov <emil.l.velikov at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I can see why people may opt to not use or maintain the autotools build.
> > Although I would kindly ask that we do not remove it just yet.
> >
> > In Mesa, we have different parts not used by different teams. As such
> > we tend to remove stuff when nobody is around to maintain it anymore.
> >
> > That said, I'm planning to continue maintaining it and would appreciate
> > if we keep it in-tree.
> >
> > As people may be concerned about bugreports and alike we can trivially
> > add a warning (as configure is invoked) to forwards any issues to my
> > email. Additionally (or alternatively) we can have an autotools bugzilla
> > category with me as the default assignee.
> >
> 
> Seems like I failed to make things clear enough with earlier message.
> 
> There is _no_ expectation for anyone to touch or even look at autotools.
> Hence, my suggestion to have configure.ac point people to me in case of issues.
> 
> If people have CI that uses it - feel free to drop it.
> 

I've tried to stay out of this discussion, because everyone knows my opinion,
and I feel I don't have much to add, however...

> 
> That said, many have asked why I'd go through the pain of maintaining it:
>  - Most Linux distributions have switched, but there'still a few outstanding
>  - Non Linux distributions have not switched

Haiku has at least :)

>  - The meson build is missing features, relative the autotools one

The only feature that I know that meson does not have relative to autotools is
the gl mangling stuff (which is intentional, we'll add it if someone shows up
with a need for it). Everything else is either intentionally not implemented
(GLX TLS toggling for example, which meson hardcodes on for OSes that support
it, and off for those that don't).

>  - I've been approached by individuals, who cannot quite yet use meson

At this point we've been very clear of our intentions to move to meson, as Matt
said I have worked very hard to resolve any issues developers and users have had
(and have spent a lot of time booting VM's and fixing meson and mesa's meson
build on non-linux OSes) or reported, but we can't resolve issues that aren't
reported. If people are having issues using meson and they're not filing a bug
with meson or with mesa, or mailing the list, or getting on IRC, there is
nothing we can do for them, and at some point they need to speak up, or accept
things.

Dylan
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