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Re: stupid build error


On Tue, 27 Nov 2012, Mike Stump wrote:

> A review of the change and approval of the change should be enough to 
> catch issues going into the FSF tree.  The build should just copy the 
> generated file to the source tree, if changed.  The build failed for me, 

The rule from the FSF is that tm.texi is treated more like a source file 
than a generated file, because no actual dual-licensing notice for 
target.def could be produced (if it could, we wouldn't need a checked-in 
tm.texi at all - checked-in generated files are only for cases where they 
are needed in the bootstrap process or to reduce the external dependencies 
for a build).  Someone can write new text and put it in both places for 
licensing in each source file under its respective license - the makefile 
rules are providing a tool to assist someone choosing to do so and so 
ensure that the source files target.def, tm.texi.in, tm.texi are kept in 
sync in a way that we wish to keep them in sync.  Or someone can copy 
existing doc strings from tm.texi to target.def, or from comments to both 
target.def and tm.texi, keeping the three files in sync in the desired 
way, but with approval for the patch from one of the docstring relicensing 
maintainers being required in that case.

Thus, the makefile rules are not rules for updating a generated file in 
the usual sense - they are rules to assist developers, who have made a 
conscious decision to put the same text in multiple source files under 
different licenses, in making changes to those multiple source files in 
sync with each other.

Perhaps the error message should be phrased differently to make clear that 
it is about the three source files not being in sync with each other.

-- 
Joseph S. Myers
joseph@codesourcery.com


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