Re: LYNX-DEV Configure patch for SCO

[Jean-Pierre Radley]

Klaus Weide telecommunicated:
| On Sun, 28 Sep 1997, Jean-Pierre Radley wrote:
| 
| > Maybe the problem is that these ac.XX versions do not unpack to different
| > trees, the top-level is always lynx2-7-1, there would be an old config.cache
| > and an old config.status file sitting there, and it hadn't been my practice
| > to type 'make distclean'.
| > 
| > Could each successive ac.XX variant unpack to its own lynx2-7-1.XX file,
| > please?  
| 
| It doesn't sound reasonable to me.  Before you un(g)zip a new variant, you
| can rm -R the old lynx2-7-1 directory (after saving away any customized
| files, of course) if you don't want the old files around at all, OR rename
| the older directory if you want to keep he previous edition around (and
| have enough space), OR you unzip of the old tree.  With your change,
| generating diffs, unzipping over the old tree (if you want it for
| whatever reason), and applying patches all become more difficult or less
| straightforward.  If there is a persistent problem with old versions of
| config.cache, then wither that should be resolved in some way, or we
| should better publicize (new ISTALLATION? :) ) what steps are needed
| or recommended.  Seems better than cluttering the directory namespace.

What that seems to me is contrary to the way almost any other public-domain
program is distributed.  Elm, mutt, pine, wu-ftpd, less, gcc, groff, xv,
ghostscript, inn, mawk, -- I could go on--, all of them unpack each new
version into a directory whose name clearly reflects the new version number.

-- 
Jean-Pierre Radley   address@hidden   XC/XT Custodian   Sysop, CompuServe 
SCOForum
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