No, my name is not Jim,
Sorry for being unclear. I wasn't guessing your name, but rather asking
Jim Meyering, long-time maintainer of Automake, to chime in.
make DIST_FLAGS='symlinks' dist
I can't think of any specific problem with the idea, except for the
general complication of adding a new "concept" of dist-time options. But
still, it seems reasonable, if Automake is going to support symlinks in
tarballs at all. Jim, wdyt?
I do think the name of the variable should be DIST_OPTIONS rather than
_FLAGS, since "symlinks" is not exactly a flag. Come to think of it,
adding AM_, ending up with AM_DIST_OPTIONS, would be safer and clearer.
Additionally we can also keep the EXTRA_DIST_LINKS, *which will
still dereference symlinks unless used in conjunction with
DIST_FLAGS='symlinks'*.
Sounds sensible. --thanks for all, karl.
