FreeTDS Development Group

[Steve Langasek <vorlon AT netexpress.net>]

James,

On Mon, Feb 03, 2003 at 04:26:35PM -0500, Lowden, James K wrote:

> I spent some time this weekend trying to use the Source Forge "compile
> farm".  I thought it would be good if we knew the rc could be built there.
> I even hoped the nightly snapshot could run there, but, alas, no jade.  I'm
> not convinced that was a waste of time, but it was definitely harder than I
> expected.  

> The "compile farm" servers have inconsistent versions of the autotools, so
> CVS builds failed on FreeBSD and Mac OS X.  The latter situation is
> expecially disappointing, since its libtool is antique, and OS X needs the
> very latest version, preferably tomorrow's.  ;-)  

In fact, simple compiling should never be contingent on the presence of
autotools at all.  A "release candidate" tarball ought to include the
full set of generated build scripts (generated in the exact environment
that will be used for the release!), so that these can also be tested to
make sure they'll work on the systems of end-users (who typically don't
have autotools installed unless they're also developers).

I think that if you prepare the snapshot/rc with the build scripts
already generated in a "known good" environment, you'll have better luck
both on the build farm and with user feedback post-release.

Cheers,
-- 
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer

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