autoconf 2.62

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Mon, 2008-07-07 at 23:34 -0700, Till Straumann wrote:
> Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> > On Mon, 2008-07-07 at 15:05 -0700, Till Straumann wrote:
> >   
> >> Ralf.
> >>
> >> I saw this thread
> >>
> >> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-autoconf/2008-04/msg00028.html
> >>
> >> and apparently you now use autoconf 2.62 on the CVS head (what
> >> is to become 4.9).
> >>     
> > Correct.
> >
> > I could not avoid to upgrade to 2.62, because RTEMS's configuration is
> > victim of a couple of incompatibilities between autoconf-2.62 and 2.61.
> >
> >   
> >> Unfortunately, our site uses RHEL4 and I'm stuck.
> >>     
> >
> > Also correct. Upstream autoconf has made a couple of unfortunate
> > decisions, which render autoconf-2.62 non-applicable on
> > ultra-conservative distros such as RHEL4.
> >
> > A corresponding request to upgrade RHEL4's (broken and defective) gm4, I
> > filed at RedHat in April
> > (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=443958)
> > so far has remained without any results.
> >
> > It might have escaped you, but this issue already had forced me to
> > abandon RTEMS-4.9 toolchain support for RHEL4 some time ago 
> > (in April or May).
> >
> >   
> >>  Do I now have to build + install gm4?
> >>     
> > That's one option. 
> >   
> The only one.
You likely pay a lot of money to RH => There are other options.

One option is to contact RH to have them fixed the knowingly broken m4
the product they sell to you contains.

>  Luckily it's not much more than just another
> nuisance.
> 
> The other suggestion of abandoning RHEL4 is not an option.
> We're a bigger organization and it is way beyond my control
> what distro is installed on our workstations -- I'm sure this
> applies to other sites, too.
No disagreement ... but there is nothing we can do. RHEL4 and older
simply are too outdated to be applicable for many purposes, such as
development.

> Whether you (or myself) like it or not, RHEL is a major, widely
> used distro and it doesn't help RTEMS to 'abandon support'
> for it, IMHO. 
Whether you like it or not: RHEL is an ultra-conservative distro,
missing a lot of packages, aiming at being supported for 7 years and
gradually is aging. .. Now, it's age is gradually showing.

I.e. there will likely always be points in time when such backward
oriented distros will have to be abandoned, because they do not meet a
modern package's requirements.

In this case, the trigger had been gm4 and RH's (so-far) unwillingness
to replace their broken gm4. Next time, it will likely be some other
package or some other distribution. If RTEMS was a GUI-oriented project,
you probably would have encountered similar issues much earlier and much
often.

> I say this having no personal interest since I
> always build my toolchains myself (the RPM install location
> doesnt' fit our filesystem layout here anyways).
Well, I am not in a position to force you to your luck.

We install to /opt/<package-suite> because this is one of the location
the FHS mandates for SW-vendor supplied packages. If your personal
preference or site-wide conventions are different, there is nothing, I
can do about.

Ralf