Re: support standalone libltdl [libtool--gary--1.0--patch-23]

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Gary,

* Gary V. Vaughan wrote on Tue, Apr 26, 2005 at 03:13:17PM CEST:
> 
> This changeset requires autoconf and automake patched according to:
> 
>   http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/autoconf-patches/2005-04/msg00028.html
> 
> But I think it is fine for HEAD to rely on CVS autoconf/automake, although
> I don't want to commit until the above patches are in too.

Agreed.

> That done, a backport to branch-2-0 will require reverting to running
> libltdl/configure as a subconfigure, otherwise we can't release it
> bootstrapped with autoconf-2.59 and automake-1.9.5.
> 
> HOWEVER: autoconf-2.59 still doesn't recognise Darwin's use of -lcrt2.o
> in g77, so the fortran tests will always fail on Darwin.  Maybe we should
> bootstrap even branch-2-0 with CVS autoconf to avoid that problem?

Whoops.  I cheated there with 1.5.16.  Used the Debian autoconf
package, which has this particular bug fixed.  This is the only
change with impact on Libtool, though.

But yes, I think that bootstrapping with this bug fixed is a good
idea.  It will not make any difference to all the packages that use
autoconf themselves, however, so it won't gain as much as we hope.

My fear is that silent dependence on some CVS feature creeps in.
That would mean big trouble, much bigger than the -lcrt2 bug.  If
that were the case, I'd oppose to using CVS versions.

> If we decide to do that, then it might ease our maintenance burden to
> backport this patch more or less as is (without a subconfigure
> hack)... the whole changeset is, after all, inspired by a bug in
> branch-2-0.  Thoughts?

For this particular fix, it seems a good idea.

OTOH, if we decide to do this, it also means we have to support 1.5
at least as long as Autoconf-2.60 and Automake-1.10 are out.

I'm unsure about what's best.

> After the backport (in whatever form it eventually takes), is there
> anything else holding back a 2.0 release that I've forgotten?

For one: people need to be able to do compilation tests with libtool
during `configure'.  Several people have complained about this.
This is _the_ bug where I really don't know how to attack it.

> If not, I propose an alpha release, and a round of testing, with 2.0 a
> few weeks later! :-D

I'll post a TODO update for HEAD soon, you may decide if there is
anything else worth holding it up.  (Of course, I'll try to fix as
many bugs from that list as possible in the remaining few weeks :-)

I'd really like to at least get the forward ports of my recent
branch-1-5 patches into that alpha, should it come.  OK?  :-)
Otherwise, we will have to deal with all the Solaris trouble
once more (the Sun Studio Fortran failures need both my boilerplate
patches and a patch only in CVS Autoconf).

> Okay to commit (after autoconf & automake changes are in CVS)?

I for one need some time to digest this patch.  Any of my above
thoughts are based on your comments only.

Regards,
Ralf