Hi.
I'd like to propose to switch from local (unmaintained?) copy of git-version-gen script and use it directly from upstream gnulib package. It's available pretty-much everywhere (including ancient Debian which we support for nightly). It's also available in meta-oe: https://layers.openembedded.org/layerindex/recipe/47365/
It doesn't feel right to use copy-pasted code when we could offload the maintenance work to packaging/dependency tools.
What do you think? Please contribute to https://osmocom.org/issues/2467 which I've created to track this RFC.
Hi Max,
On Mon, Aug 28, 2017 at 02:38:43PM +0200, Max wrote:
I'd like to propose to switch from local (unmaintained?) copy of git-version-gen script and use it directly from upstream gnulib package. It's available pretty-much everywhere (including ancient Debian which we support for nightly). It's also available in meta-oe: https://layers.openembedded.org/layerindex/recipe/47365/
this sounds like yet another of the changes that you recently seem to like to introduce to the build infrastructure which I don't like.
What kind of maintenance does something like git-version-gen require? What kind of bugs have we ever encountered in the copies that we keep in our repos?
Where is the *actual* benefit to us as developers and particularly to our users?
To me, this looks like the right thing in theory, but then in reality it will mean all buildhosts/docker-images need to be updated, virtually every wiki page related to building osmocom from source needs updates. Projects like osmo-combo will need to be updated. Other people's dockerfiles or similar "recipes" need updates.
Is all of this an efficient use of our time? Again, what bottom-line benefit does this bring? To me it just sounds like a change that is likely to create fall-out and frustration down the line, for no obvious advantage.
You're right about extra efforts. It still doesn't feel right to use copy-pasted code precisely because we can't easily answer to those questions about bugs we have in our outdated copy. Nevertheless, I see your point, thanks for feedback.
On 31.08.2017 13:40, Harald Welte wrote:
What kind of maintenance does something like git-version-gen require? What kind of bugs have we ever encountered in the copies that we keep in our repos?
Where is the *actual* benefit to us as developers and particularly to our users?
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Harald Welte -
Max