Re: Proposed patch for ax_enable_builddir.m4

[Peter Simons]

Guido Draheim writes:

 > Peter Simons writes:
 >
 >> Hi Julian,
 >>
 >> thank you for taking the time to update the macro. Your patch
 >> certainly feels reasonable to me, so I applied it to the macro:
 >>
 >>   http://autoconf-archive.cryp.to/ax_enable_builddir.html
 >>
 >> I also followed your advice and marked AX_ENABLE_BUILDDIR_UNAME
 >> as obsolete.
 >>
 >> Guido, you are the principal author of those macros. I make those
 >> changes in good faith that they are okay with you.
 >>
 >> Thank you for supporting free software to both of you.
 >>
 >> Best regards,
 >> Peter
 >
 > Peter, on such occasions it is good idea to put the name of
 > the new maintainer in front of the authors list - the _UNAME
 > macro is actually the new one while I do consider the old one
 > as obsolete. Obviously, the longer name could inspire the idea
 > that it came later in development and it is newer therefore.
 > As the old macro is used quite heavily in some projects, I did
 > not want to occupy its name for something else.

Well, Guido, what can I say?

You have received Julian's patch. Julian has put quite a bit of
effort into describing his rationale. As usual, you just don't
respond. After a few days, I decide to commit the patch because
it looks absolutely reasonable to me and I have no indication
that you think otherwise. As usual, _after_ the commit has been
made, you suddenly respond with a massive, long-winded essay that
gives me headaches when I try to decipher it. Not that there is
much to decipher, because the message is loud and clear: "Sorry,
but that's completely wrong." And naturally, you also see the
need to drag a private e-mail conversation to a public mailing
list for no apparent reason other than an audience.

I really love it when I have to deal with you.

I don't feel qualified to judge the technical details of the
change and I trust that you, Julian, and all other interested
parties find some sort of consensus what the AX_ENABLE_BUILDDIR
macro should look like. In order to provide context for everyone,
here are the commits we're talking about:

  http://tinyurl.com/ys75r2
  http://tinyurl.com/2yuh5f

To address your last comment. The order of the authors in the
macro file is more or less random; it's typically simply the
order in which people contributed to the macro. The person who
has been listed first is not necessarily the one who contributed
the most or the most frequently. In other words: there is no such
thing as the "first" author. Regardless of the author
attribution, the maintainer of the macro am I because I maintain
the Archive.

The AX_ENABLE_BUILDDIR_UNAME macro has been obsoleted because it
duplicates functionality from AC_CANONICAL_BUILD. To me, it is
not clear what this macro is supposed to do and why it is better
than AX_ENABLE_BUILDDIR. Can you please elaborate on that
subject?

Best regards,
Peter