Re: CI scallywag setup/cygport/autoconf missing autoconf-archive pkg

[Ken Brown <kbrown@cornell.edu>]

On 10/2/2021 1:48 AM, Brian Inglis wrote:
> On 2021-10-01 22:15, Achim Gratz wrote:
>> Brian Inglis writes:
>>> As autoconf requires: autoconf2.1 autoconf2.5 bash sed, I believe that
>>> would be the more appropriate place for an autoconf-archive
>>> requirement, otherwise cygport would have to require it, which is not
>>> so obvious.
>>
>> No. If a build needs autoconf-archive then require it there.  The whole
>> point of having things in separate packages is that you do not have to
>> install things you don't need. Neither autottols nor cygport require
>> this package in any way.
> 
> See response to Yaakov: the problem is it's just a given in the build systems of 
> the packages that use it,

I acknowledge that it's easy to give advice with hindsight, but here are two 
ways you might have discovered that you needed autoconf-archive as a build 
requirement for your package.

1. You could have checked the Fedora .spec file for the package.  In my 
experience, Fedora maintainers are generally very good at listing build 
requirements.  I don't think you've said what package you're talking about, so I 
can't check whether that would have helped in this case.

2. An internet search for AX_CODE_COVERAGE would have immediately told you that 
it's in autoconf-archive.

You also mentioned the gnulib bug you ran into while packaging bison.  It's 
unfortunate that you lost so much time on this, but you handled it exactly 
right.  You reported it upstream, they passed it on to gnulib, and it got fixed.

We all appreciate the effort you've been making to adopt orphaned packages.  I 
think you've just run into a string of bad luck that has caused this to be very 
time consuming.

Ken