[Libusbx-devel] "make distcheck" fails (Re: libusbx v1.0.9-rc4 is now available)

[Ludovic Rousseau]

Le 30 mars 2012 13:18, Pete Batard <pete at akeo.ie> a écrit :
> On 2012.03.30 09:04, Ludovic Rousseau wrote:
>>
>> "make distcheck" fails with:
>> [...]
>> ERROR: files left in build directory after distclean:
>> ./ChangeLog
>> make[1]: *** [distcleancheck] Error 1
>> make: *** [distcheck] Error 1
>>
>>
>> The problem is that ChangeLog is a special file known and managed by
>> automake [1].
>
>
> Well, I think the problem really is that we have the following in
> Makefile.in:
>
> ChangeLog:
>  git --git-dir $(top_srcdir)/.git log > ChangeLog || touch ChangeLog
>
> dist-hook: ChangeLog
>
> Currently, my view of maintaining a ChangeLog is that it seems fairly
> unnecessary. First of all, it currently adds ~40KB (compressed, 134 KB
> uncompressed) to our archives, and unless people don't have an internet
> connection, all the information we put there can easily be retrieved from
> gitweb (and moreover, with a much better presentation and features).
>
> My currently plan would be to either drop the ChangeLog altogether, which we
> can do with AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([foreign]), or, better, just add a static one
> with a line that says:
> "Please visit
> http://libusbx.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=libusbx/libusbx;a=summary
> for the latest changes"
>
> All in all, it really all seems to boil down to: Do we want to care about
> people who may not have an internet connection to access gitweb (or people
> who prefer parsing a 134 KB text file over a web UI with search), and add 40
> KB extra to our archives by duplicating something that is available
> elsewhere and that will require additional maintenance?
> Or do we want to do something a bit more pragmatic here?

I agree to have a static ChangeLog file pointing to sourceforge.net as
in your proposal.

People interested enough to read the ChangeLog (i.e. "developers")
should also have a git clone available.

Bye

-- 
 Dr. Ludovic Rousseau