[parted-devel] Parted bootstrap - logic error when comparing version numbers

[Jim Meyering]

Otavio Salvador wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 4:29 PM, Jim Meyering <jim at meyering.net> wrote:
>> Otavio Salvador wrote:
>> IMHO, upstream should not be beholden to distribution versions
>> of automake when they're stuck at 1.10.1 which is over a year old.
>> By that argument, depending on which distro you choose, we'd never
>> be able to use newer tools.
>
> We should not be beholden, agreed but please read bellow.
>
>> Besides, there are several desirable features in automake-1.10b
>> for which I intend to switch parted:
>>
>>  silent-rules
>>  parallel-tests
>>  dist-xz support
>>
>> and maybe one or two others, not counting all of the bug fixes.
>
> Until we add those, there's no need to bump the _requirement_. As
> the name suggest it is the version that is _required_ to build, not a
> suggested one.
>
>> If you require to be able to build using some older version of automake,
>> you can build from a patched branch or even from a release tarball,
>> at which point the version of automake doesn't even matter.
>>
>> Developers can be expected to be able to install a recent automake,
>> even from git, although that would be exceptional.
>
> Sure but I disagree with requiring it for a gratious reason. Once
> we start to use the new features I fully agree but until it is done
> I think we ought to stay with the last compatible one.

When I raised the requirement to 1.10a,
it was most certainly not a gratuitous change.
Even back when I did that, there had been enough
improvements in automake to make it worthwhile.

I've just pushed this change: