SunOS4 compatibility (was: automake/533: DISTFILES containing a directory and files in that directory)

[Ralf Wildenhues]

[ adding automake@; this is
  <http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.sysutils.automake.patches/3439> ]

* Ralf Wildenhues wrote on Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 10:17:06AM CET:
> --- a/lib/am/distdir.am
> +++ b/lib/am/distdir.am
> @@ -202,10 +202,16 @@ endif %?TOPDIR_P%
>  ## directory exists only in $(srcdir), because some vendor Make (such
>  ## as Tru64) will magically create an empty directory in `.'
>           dir=`echo "/$$file" | sed -e 's,/[^/]*$$,,'`; \
> +## If the destination directory already exists, it may contain read-only
> +## files, e.g., during `make distcheck'.
> +         if test -d "$(distdir)/$$file"; then \
> +           find "$(distdir)/$$file" -type d ! -perm -700 -exec chmod u+rwx 
> {} \;; \
> +         fi; \
>           if test -d $(srcdir)/$$file && test $$d != $(srcdir); then \
> -           cp -pR $(srcdir)/$$file "$(distdir)$$dir" || exit 1; \
> +           cp -fpR $(srcdir)/$$file "$(distdir)$$dir" || exit 1; \
> +           find "$(distdir)/$$file" -type d ! -perm -700 -exec chmod u+rwx 
> {} \;; \
>           fi; \
> -         cp -pR $$d/$$file "$(distdir)$$dir" || exit 1; \
> +         cp -fpR $$d/$$file "$(distdir)$$dir" || exit 1; \
>         else \

Oh brother.  According to autoconf.info, SunOS4 'cp' did not support the
-f option.  Anyone think we still need 'make dist' to work there?

Does anyone have access to such a system any more?
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SunOS> states it is from 1988.

Thanks,
Ralf