4 ms·

Also, since we cannot update the existing configure scripts that are already generated and distributed as part of other programs, even if we improve autoconf, i

Also, since we cannot update the existing configure scripts that are already generated and distributed as part of other programs, even if we improve autoconf, it would take many years until the problem would be resolved. I don't know autoconf and this sentence got me curious: why would it not be possible to regenerate existing configure scripts using a fixed version of autoconf? Are those scripts likely to be manually edited after they've been generated?

pm215 9y ago
You can regenerate, and indeed you have to if you need to add support for a new cpu architecture, for instance. Debian has support in its packaging for making it easy to regenerate configure scripts as part of the package build for this reason: https://wiki.debian.org/Autoreconf https://wiki.debian.org/Autoreconf They say "By _far_ the largest piece of work for any new debian port is updating hundreds of packages to have newer autotools config information so that they will build for the new architecture", which is why putting in the effort to have the package build do it automatically is worthwhile. Presumably FreeBSD could have taken a similar approach for its ports, though of course just tweaking the help string is much less effort.
- muxator 9y ago
  The author also makes a point that autotools releases are really infrequent. Indeed, the latest release of libtool is 2.4.6, from February 2015 (more than two years ago).
zuzun 9y ago
Most open-source projects let you build the configure script on your computer. They either provide a tiny script named autogen.sh or tell you to call autoreconf -fi manually. They might track the auto-generated configure script as fallback for people without autotools installed, but no one really edits those.
FooBarWidget 9y ago
Yes that is possible; the configure script is for the most part autogenerated. But the maintainers of said programs have to actually do so, and users have to actually download the latest version. It would still take many years for fixes to propagate throughout the entire ecosystem.
- amgaera 9y ago
  The article talks about the broken linker check being an issue mostly when adopting lld as part of the standard build system of an operating system, such as FreeBSD. For FreeBSD to switch to lld, wouldn't it be enough to fix the version of autoconf available in FreeBSD and use it to regenerate configure scripts in FreeBSD's build system (when building and packaging programs for inclusion in its repositories)?

pm215 9y ago

You can regenerate, and indeed you have to if you need to add support for a new cpu architecture, for instance. Debian has support in its packaging for making it easy to regenerate configure scripts as part of the package build for this reason: https://wiki.debian.org/Autoreconf https://wiki.debian.org/Autoreconf They say "By _far_ the largest piece of work for any new debian port is updating hundreds of packages to have newer autotools config information so that they will build for the new architecture", which is why putting in the effort to have the package build do it automatically is worthwhile. Presumably FreeBSD could have taken a similar approach for its ports, though of course just tweaking the help string is much less effort.

muxator 9y ago
The author also makes a point that autotools releases are really infrequent. Indeed, the latest release of libtool is 2.4.6, from February 2015 (more than two years ago).

zuzun 9y ago

Most open-source projects let you build the configure script on your computer. They either provide a tiny script named autogen.sh or tell you to call autoreconf -fi manually. They might track the auto-generated configure script as fallback for people without autotools installed, but no one really edits those.

FooBarWidget 9y ago

Yes that is possible; the configure script is for the most part autogenerated. But the maintainers of said programs have to actually do so, and users have to actually download the latest version. It would still take many years for fixes to propagate throughout the entire ecosystem.

amgaera 9y ago
The article talks about the broken linker check being an issue mostly when adopting lld as part of the standard build system of an operating system, such as FreeBSD. For FreeBSD to switch to lld, wouldn't it be enough to fix the version of autoconf available in FreeBSD and use it to regenerate configure scripts in FreeBSD's build system (when building and packaging programs for inclusion in its repositories)?