Re: 'make dist' take 2

On 1/3/07, Ryan Pavlik <abiryan@ryand.net> wrote:
> At the moment we do not use Autoconf for win32 building - we use the old
> diving make system. Does this commit change anything with that system?
> (I already use "make dist" with the standard makefiles to build
> everything, so I hope this didn't break that - I was hoping we were
> almost ready for 2.5.0 on windows side)
>
> If you could clarify just how I am supposed to use this and what is
> different/better compared to the diving make system, that would be
> appreciated (since last time I heard, automake'd binaries on windows had
> no icons or dialogs, and I just got done getting the existing makefiles
> to build using all our shared libraries now :D )

At the moment our source shipped source tarballs, e.g. [1] are created
"by hand" by Marc. When unpacked they expand into a set of
subdirectories that in contain separate build systems, e.g. "abi",
"abiword-plugins" and a few more.

For standard source tarballs the convention is that each project with
a build system comes in a separate tarball, and that's what I have
been working on.

The diving make system used to build abiword and friends on windows
should not be affected at all, just the way how the source tarballs
are created. Instead of one big tarball we will ship:
    abiword-2.5.0.tar.gz (cvs module "abi")
    abiword-plugins-2.5.0.tar.gz (cvs module "abiword-plugins")
    abiword-docs-2.5.0.tar.gz (cvs module "abiword-docs")
    abiword-extras-2.5.0.tar.gz (cvs module "abidistfiles")
In addition to that tarballs containing peer sources for win32/osx may
be needed.

In short, what is different?
  + Separate source tarballs.
  + Tarballs are created using autotools, "make dist" and GNUmakefile*
instead of "by hand".
  + Building on windows should largely stay the same, once remaining
problems are fixed.

What is better?
  + More obvious source layout, following conventions, easier for packagers.
  + No need to download everything, e.g. peer sources not needed on "unix".
  + We can consider making point releases with critical fixes, without
need for dumping all source all the time.

[1] http://www.abisource.com/downloads/abiword/2.4.6/source/abiword-2.4.6.tar.gz

Cheers,
Rob
Received on Wed Jan 3 21:49:38 2007