bug#12184: GNU Automake 1.12.2 - 4 tests FAIL on Solaris 10 Sparc

[Dennis Clarke]

> > I suggest you try building with a recent version of gcc.
> > 
> > If you really must use that other compiler, consider
> > instrumenting the failing test to make it report the
> > precise grep command that is failing.  If you do, please
> > report that, along with the actual/expected output.
> >
> How is this not helpful?  It suggested a possible way out from
> your problem (use GCC), or, failing that, instructions to give
> the developers what they need to start investigating the problem.
>

Part of the reason I am doing all this is to build a recent GCC. 
Something I do, a lot. I can not abide by the dependance on the 
very expensive Sun/Oracle developer tools. For the sake of reasonable
portability across many platforms I would rather work with GCc. 

see : http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.7/buildstat.html

I have excellent results for GCC 4.7.1 on i386-pc-solaris2.8 which
is very very old. However it has the benefit that anything which
runs flawlessly on Solaris 8 will run everywhere else in the 
Solaris world.  Sparc is another issue and I am working on that. 
 
> > -------------------------------------------------------------
> > 
> > Essentially, we are Linux, we don't do UNIX, go make UNIX
> > like Linux.
> >
> Actually, most the GNU tools (among them grep) strive to be
> greatly portable, sometimes even too much IMHO.
> 
> The issue is that the developers' time is limited, and if they
> don't have a Solaris machine with a Sun compiler to test with,
> well, they won't lose their time fighting to get one.  If Oracle
> is interested in having their systems supported better, it's on
> them to offer easy access to Solaris and the Sun C compiler to
> Free Software and Open Source developers; if they don't, their
> system will get a "best effort" support at most.  I see this as
> right and proper, and sometimes even too generous.  And if a
> user of a fringe/uncommon/proprietary systems is interested in
> making things work for himself, it's on him to provide the
> developers with enough help or feedback to make that possible;
> this too seems appropriate to me.

Hey man, get off my soap box! I was here first.  :-)

I was in the OpenSolaris project from day zero long before it 
went public and I can tell you it was a farce and a sham how
ORacle handled that disaster. Also, they ( read Larry ) does 
not give a damn about open source or open anything. The idea
is a joke to him and all his executives. So forget them. 

However, some of us are still stuck dealing with the old Solaris
architecture until it finally vanishes from every server room
in the world, much like DEC Alpha, SGI or half a dozen great 
names we both know. 

Now then, I still need to get a stable toolchain built in order
to bootstrap GCC and then many other things to follow. 

Dennis