Paul Smith wrote:
* Replace local portability code with Gnulib content. Unfortunately due to a
problem with Gnulib support for getloadavg, this forces a requirement on
Automake 1.16 or above in order to build from Git. See README.git.
bootstrap.conf and configure.ac say "1.16.1" so presumably NEWS should say
"1.16.1" rather than "1.16".
However, I assume this note refers to the email thread rooted here:
https://lists.gnu.org/r/bug-gnulib/2018-06/msg00024.html
and it's not clear to me what the Gnulib/Automake portability problem is. I
attempted to reproduce the problem on Ubuntu 18.04.3 (which use Automake 1.15.1)
by changing bootstrap.conf and configure.ac to say "1.15.1", but my
'./bootstrap; ./configure --prefix=/tmp/prefix; make check; make install; make
SRCROOTDIR=$HOME/src/gnu ChangeLog; make dist' worked fine. So perhaps the
problem (whatever it is) is not due entirely to Automake version.
For what it's worth, Emacs uses Gnulib getloadavg, but since Emacs switched from
Automake to GNU make in 2017 its build procedure does not require any particular
Automake version. Perhaps GNU Make could start depending on (an older version
of) GNU Make, and take this approach in some future version.
Conversely, Coreutils uses Gnulib getloadavg and still uses Automake, but it
seems to work fine requiring only Automake 1.11.2 or later. Perhaps this is
because Coreutils switched to non-recursive 'make' in 2012. This might be
another approach GNU Make could take.
_______________________________________________
Bug-make mailing list
Bug-make@gnu.org
https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-make
