On Tue, 31 Mar 2020 at 17:05, Eric Blake <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 3/31/20 10:51 AM, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote: > > +if test "$in_srcdir" = "yes"; then > > + echo > > + echo "WARNING: SUPPORT FOR IN SOURCE DIR BUILDS IS DEPRECATED" > > + echo > > + echo "Support for running the 'configure' script directly from the" > > + echo "source directory is deprecated and will go away in a future" > > + echo "release. In source dir builds are not covered by automated" > > + echo "testing and are liable to break without warning. Users are" > > + echo "strongly recommended to switch to a separate build directory:" > > Per Kevin's response, we may want to tweak this wording slightly; maybe: > > Support for running the 'configure' script directly from the source > directory is deprecated. In-tree builds are not covered by automated > testing and are liable to break without warning. Future releases may > change the default location of built executables for an in-tree build, > or drop in-tree build support altogether. Users are strongly > recommended to switch to a separate build directory:
I now feel that, given that we've had various people say they want to retain at least the basic in-tree build commands and are willing to put in a wrapper to make it keep working, that this deprecation wording is a bit strong. I don't think that it much serves our users to say "this will go away" and then implement the compatibility wrapper -- we've caused them to unnecessarily change what they're doing, and then reduced the value of the compat-wrapper work we do. A more gently phrased note that we recommend use of out-of-tree builds would be sufficient I think. (That is, the idea of notes in the release notes and configure is to signpost to our users the direction we think the project is going in, so they are not unpleasantly surprised in future. For this to work the signpost should be pointing reasonably in the direction we plan to head, rather than somewhat askew from it :-)) thanks -- PMM
