[Image-SIG] PIL's configure bug -- from 2002

[Terry Hancock]

On Friday 20 February 2004 06:52 pm, Bill Janssen wrote:
> Not really a PIL problem, you just don't like the way things work.
> Fair enough!  I agree, fix it.  But if I could suggest something:
> don't fix it in a piecemeal style -- this is a generic problem with
> the autoconf system, not with PIL.  Add a couple of standard switches
> to configure, not to the PIL configure.in.

PIL's configure script already contains --with-jpeg and --with-zlib
options, which according to the "./configure --help" are supposed
to provide exactly the service I describe.  They do not appear to
work as advertised.

I classify that as a bug, not a feature request. How you can figure
this is a "generic problem with the autoconf system" is beyond me
(what would you be expecting autoconf to do about it?)

And if I had access to your original configure.in, I could probably
figure out why and fix it. That file is missing from the so-called "source"
distribution of a so-called "open source" package, which was very
frustrating to me, and should bother the maintainer too.  Don't you
think so, too?   This violates published standards for both "free
software" and "open source software" definitions (generated
intermediate files are not "source code").  Surely it does so
accidentally, right?

Now maybe my technical point is totally wrong.  But surely the best
way to prove that is just to show me the file, rather than making
excuses about why I shouldn't need to see it.  I find the latter
extremely disconcerting.

Cheers,
Terry

--
Terry Hancock ( hancock at anansispaceworks.com )
Anansi Spaceworks  http://www.anansispaceworks.com