Re: [bug-gnulib] Use of bison

[Bruno Haible]

Mark D. Baushke wrote on 2005-12-30:
> For what it may be worth, the CVS project has a
> forked copy of the GNULIB bison.m4 which uses
> bison-missing until such time as automake-1.10 is
> released when it will no longer be an issue.

Which macro is used, depends on whether the generated .c file is put into
the project's CVS and regularly updated. If it is, then if 'bison' is not
found, it can default to ':'. (This is what GNU gettext does in gettext.m4.)
If not, then anyone without 'bison' can not build the package or will run
into mysterious crashes due to an outdated .c file. (This is the case for
the majority of projects, since the majority opinion is that generated files
don't belong in CVS.)

We could provide a gnulib-tool option that changes the default in bison.m4
to ':'. But what would be the consequence? People would use this option
because it's more comfortable, and when they forget to regularly update their
.c files, mysterious bugs appear. So all in all, I think the current
bison.m4 is the best.

> +dnl later, as those avoid generating .c files from .y when not in maintainer
> +dnl mode.

Maintainer mode is not a good thing. It creates barriers between first-class
developers and second-class developers. Educating second-class developers how
to become first-class developers is more desirable, IMO.

Bruno