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

[Terry Hancock]

On Wednesday 25 February 2004 02:41 pm, Fredrik Lundh wrote:
> Terry Hancock wrote:
> 
> > 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?
> 
> Hint: with that attitude, it's very easy to ignore you.

What attitude?  You mean the bit about violating open-source
definitions?  This is technically true -- I'm not suggesting that it's
malicious, I'm trying to suggest that it *is* a flaw.  Because  Bill
seemed to be missing that point.  I was only hinting before, because
it did seem rather rude to point out that -- in principle at least --
you are violating the open-source social contract here.  Seeing
as PIL is your baby, Fredrik, and you have been very interested
in the open-source model, I figured you'd agree that this wasn't
right, even if it is a "trivial" part of the source.

Look, all I said was that this problem exists.  I said that in 2002 and
received complete silence.  I wasn't willing to personally fix it then,
so I said "Well, okay, maybe they have other priorities, I'll fix it when
I'm motivated enough to do so".  Then I came back to it, find it
still broken, and Ack! no source to fix, so much for the open-source
theory (actually my first thought was "My God, how am I going to
figure out this configure script" -- then I remembered that it was 
generated).  My next thought was to pull the file from CVS, but of course,
that doesn't work with PIL, because of your lead-ahead proprietary/
free release model.

It is actually very common for open-source projects with Autoconf
installers to not include the Autoconf sources, but it does make the
source distribution incomplete.  And when a bug is in the configuration,
rather than the package itself, this means you can't really fix it yourself.
For many projects, this is no problem, because you can just go pull
the file from CVS, but see above.

I don't mind doing a little footwork -- but the only way to get the
source in question seems to be to ask for it here.   So I did.  Actually,
I was prepared for the possibility that it isn't really "configure.in" that I want
to edit, because I'm not really familiar with Autoconf (yet, anyway).

In fact, now I think I just need to read configure.in to figure out what
needs to change in the libImaging/Makefile.in file (which is present).

But I didn't get that information, I got somebody claiming my problem
isn't really a problem.  Or that it is a problem, but not a very important
one.  Or that it is a problem, but it's a problem with somebody *else's*
package.

Hint: with *this* attitude it's pretty easy to lose interest in offering you
free help. ;-)

Terry

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