All installed host tools are removed from the RTEMS sources - next steps?

[Chris Johns]

On 18/06/2018 16:43, Sebastian Huber wrote:
> On 18/06/18 08:39, Chris Johns wrote:
>>> What do we want to do with the standard Makefile support in "c/src/make" and
>>> "make"?
>> I am not sure I understand what this means?
> 
> We have this standard Makefile support for applications:
> 
> https://git.rtems.org/rtems/tree/c/src/make/README
> 
> This stuff depends on the *.cfg files and would need an update if we use
> pkg-config files.
> 

Externally reflecting the internal build system and state to applications was a
mistake. We have no idea how these the files we have exported have been used
because there is no controlled API at the config file level. I do not think we
can create an API now that is workable and does not break users. This is why the
original pkg-config effort stalled.

We need to make some difficult choices. I see the end of the road for this
support as it exists.

I see make builds being supported in a standard pkg-config way which is a
positive. The support around pkg-config for a number of important build systems
is mature including make.

If this type of support is needed to be backwards compatible I suggest an
external tool is written that generates these files with the data in a suitable
format that provides some backwards compatibility. This tool could be part of
the RTEMS Tools project or stand alone like rtems_waf.

The main objective is having a single standard API, ie pkg-config, and the
eco-system builds on that API for the various build systems that exist.

If this is accepted you are free to make changes in the build system without
needing to consider external applications. I think this will be important when
making things simpler and cleaner.

Chris