[Pkg-shadow-devel] out of my depth

[Serge E. Hallyn]

Quoting Mike Frysinger (vapier at gentoo.org):
> On Thu, Dec 1, 2016 at 8:57 AM, Bálint Réczey wrote:
> > 2016-12-01 8:25 GMT+01:00 Mike Frysinger:
> >> On Tue, Nov 29, 2016 at 6:45 PM, Bálint Réczey wrote:
> >>> 2016-11-27 9:02 GMT+01:00 Mike Frysinger:
> >>>> On 25 Nov 2016 13:42, Serge E. Hallyn wrote:
> >>>>> On Tue, Nov 22, 2016 at 02:23:56AM +0100, Bálint Réczey wrote:
> >>>>> > Please don't use make dist.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Huh.  That's the first time I've heard that suggestion.
> >>>>
> >>>> it's a bad suggestion in this case.  some people try to be super strict
> >>>> in that the releases are always reproducible from git.  while that might
> >>>> work for some projects, it doesn't for ones that use a generated build
> >>>> system like autotools.  in order to pull it off, you'd have to actually
> >>>> commit the generated output (e.g. "configure" and "config.h.in" and all
> >>>> the rest) to git which is an even worse idea.
> >>>
> >>> I may not have been clear enough, but I had no intention to suggest
> >>> storing generated files in git. This would be a bad idea. I would like to ask
> >>> for basing the Debian package on a tarball _not_ containing generated
> >>> files such as Makefile.in.
> >>
> >> i have no opinion at all how Debian wants to maintain their .deb sources
> >
> > This thread was about that question.
> 
> no, this thread was about including gmo files in the dist tarball.  it
> then spiraled into the weeds with people giving bad advice for how to
> do a release.
> 
> >>> Reviewing changes when autogenerated files pollute the diff is harder
> >>> and shadow is an important package.
> >>
> >> yes, but as a general thing, always rebuilding autotools from scratch
> >> is kind of wasteful and can be a pain when the sources aren't kept up
> >> to date (and you try to use newer autotools which have new
> >> warnings/errors).  i'm not familiar with how Debian typically builds
> >> things though, so maybe that's "normal".
> >>
> >>>> so when making shadow releases, you should be using `make distcheck`.
> >>>> you can then attach the tarball to the github page under the releases
> >>>> section.
> >>>
> >>> Why? Who can't use the git archive output?
> >>
> >> forcing all users of shadow to build autotools from scratch is
> >> fundamentally wrong.  it defeats the entire purpose of autotools.  if
> >> *you* don't want to use them, then fine, don't, but Debian is not the
> >> entire ecosystem.
> >
> > Please open an issue at upstream if you really need ./configure
> > generated for you:
> > https://github.com/shadow-maint/shadow
> 
> opening a bug report for an issue that can't be solved by a
> creating&pushing a commit won't help.  the release process here is
> broken and that's external to the code in git.

I've uploaded a new tarball and signature to
	http://people.ubuntu.com/~serge-hallyn/shadow-4.4
(just to not pollute github right now).  Could you take a look and tell
me whether that looks ok to you?