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Re: Patch to update libtool in GCC and Src trees


On Fri, 11 May 2007 18:14:48 -0400, "Jeff Johnston"

> My question is how volatile is libtool going to be?  I'm getting kind of 
> tired of having to change newlib whenever autoconf/automake decides to 
> change something.  If libtool is simply going to continue working 
> without constant changes, then Chuck's option 2 seems to make the most 
> sense, though a bit tedious.

Well, "upstream" libtool is always undergoing continual development. 
But how often, and under what circumstances, the gcc- and src- trees
decide to re-import the latest CVS version is the (collective decision
of) the subtree maintainers like yourself and the top-level maintainers.
 Perhaps Steve's current effort will be the last libtool import until
libtool releases its next major version (aka 2.0 or 2.2 or whatever they
decide to call it).  Or maybe there will be future re-imports from
libtool CVS every few months or so: annoying, but not especially trying
if they are relatively infrequent.  Especially as I expect such
re-imports will be much less disruptive than THIS major change. 

I don't really understand this: "whenever autoconf/automake decides to
change something."  The src- tree has standardized on specific versions
of autoconf and automake: 2.59 and 1.9.6, respectively.  Those are
released versions: they don't "change".   Current autoconf "changes" are
happening in autoconf-2.61+, and current automake "changes" are
happening in automake-1.10.+.  How do those changes affect newlib, which
is (supposedly) using the carved-in-stone 2.59/1.9.6 releases?

Now, maybe you're reacting to all the upheaval in the past two years in
which the src- and gcc- trees were laboriously converted TO 2.59/1.9.6. 
But that's all done now (pace' Steve's current libtool work).  And once
Steve's libtool-20070318 stuff is imported...I expect future changes to
be relatively rare (although I doubt you'll get away with *five years*
between libtool updates anymore!).   This 'relative rarity' will
probably prove unfortunate for me -- as I mentioned earlier I'm
currently working on some cygwin/mingw libtool improvements, but if I've
'missed the window', then they will just have to wait 'til libtool-2.x.
'sokay.

Now maybe the top-level maintainers will all go insane and start bumping
ac-2.59 to 2.61 or CVS-HEAD, or am-1.9.6 to am-1.10 or CVS-HEAD, every
few weeks or something.  Or re-import libtool "too often" for your
liking, or litter <toplevel>/m4/ with a bunch of "fixes" to compensate
for shortcomings of the carved-in-stone ac-2.59/am-1.9.6.   If they do,
then by all means start complaining -- but that wouldn't be the fault of
upstream autoconf, automake OR libtool...

--
Chuck


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