Re: [Scrollkeeper-devel] problem with configure script on scrollkeeper 0.3.12 *SOLVED!*

[Malcolm T. <ma...@co...>]

On Thu, May 01, 2003 at 02:35:20AM -0500, Joel Sinor wrote:
> I forgot to mention that I did eventually find out what was happening
> with Sourcemage.  Now, compiling by hand would have worked in any case.
> At issue was a change they made for a bug.  I have not tracked the bug #
> down and corrected it, but essentially they were doing
> $ more /var/lib/sorcery/codex/stable/gnome/scrollkeeper/BUILD
> (
>   sedit "s/if xmlcatalog/if ! xmlcatalog/" configure
>   default_build
> ) > $C_FIFO 2>&1
> $ 

Because they don't believe in "patch"?

> So essentially my theory is someone got the error for the DTD not being
> there and changed this so they would not get the error.  I will find out
> why eventually, but this of course has the result that if you have the
> dependency installed you will fail.  Sourcemage usually has things like
> this in their spell script config files to fix broken ./configure and
> make files (or at least things that are broken for their distro).
> This will not affect any normal compilations, just compiles using their
> scripts.  I will let you guys know when I find out more (have been
> fighting other battles).

Thanks for letting us know. That unfortunately reaffirms my earlier
point though that, at least in my mind, Sourcemage are well on truly on
the "distributions not be trusted in bug reports" list, which is going
to really suck for their users. Completely breaking a package rather
than fixing the core problem is disgraceful -- and you seem to indicate
they do it often. There just are not that many 'broken' build processes
out there that it's worth adopting a lax attitude to change. Those that
are broken should be patched and bugs reported upstream to confirm that
it really is a bug (this example was "fixed" by somebody who doesn't
understand document build processes, for example).

Sorry, I'll stop ranting now. But really!

Not your fault though and thanks for the update. I'm going to go and
have a lie down now.

Malcolm

-- 
Tolkien is hobbit-forming.