[Build-common-hackers] Bug#744915: automatic autoconf config file updating

[Paul Wise]

On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 2:42 AM, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Wookey writes:
>
>> So, where in debian should we put responsiblity for updating
>> config.{sub,guess}?
>
> I lean towards being more aggressive than this and running autoreconf or
> the moral equivalent on any package using Autoconf, by default.  For that
> idea, I offer the following defense:

I agree and offer this suggested plan of action:

Document this in policy.

Merge dh-autoreconf into debhelper.

Enable --with autoreconf for debhelper compat 10.

Add a lintian warning for packages using autotools, debhelper compat <
10 and not using --with autoreconf.

Bump the dh_make default debhelper compat to 10.

On the buildability question; IIRC it is ftpmaster policy that
everything must be buildable from source on Debian but that that
doesn't have to happen at build time. IMO the only way to ensure that
is to actually build at build time and rebuild regularly. I'd also
welcome some standard targets in debian/rules that could be used to
rebuild everything, including things that aren't normally built from
source by debian/rules build. If that were added, debhelper could run
autoreconf from there by default on all autoconf using packages, no
matter the compat.

-- 
bye,
pabs

http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise