Most of it was explained in: http://bugs.ghostscript.com/show_bug.cgi?id=692040#c3 I got a somewhat clean Mac OS X 10.4 machine to looking at one ijs related issue on powerpc. It is shipped with automake-1.6.3 and libtool 1.5 (1.1220 2003/04/05 19:32:58). And ijs built successfully with it, although the change in bug 692040 mistakenly requires 1.8 . I don't think 1.8 works with libtool 2.x either. The lesson is really that you should use the GNU auto* packages all of the same vintage, not mixing old with new.
None of my systems have automake 1.6 on them, and I'm not inclined to spend a lot of time on this - given that the current automake version is 1.14, and any reasonably up to date set of autotools versions will work correctly. If anyone wants to send me a tested set of patches with the requisite version requirements checks to interact correctly, I happily apply them.
(In reply to comment #1) > None of my systems have automake 1.6 on them, and I'm not inclined to spend > a lot of time on this - given that the current automake version is 1.14, and > any reasonably up to date set of autotools versions will work correctly. > > If anyone wants to send me a tested set of patches with the requisite > version requirements checks to interact correctly, I happily apply them. Yes and no. Any reasonably up to date set of autotools versions will work correctly, but the current autogen.sh contain codes to use specific versions if multiple versions exist on this system. Hence the problem in bug 692040: fedora shipped an older specific version (simultaneously with the then current) which does not work. The mistaken bogus fix was simply to ask for a non-existent specific version, and therefore the latest get used. I'd probably suggest removing the specific older version selection code, or make it as tolerant as possible (i.e. reverting the change in bug 692040); trying to be more specific - and adding code to look for specific combinations - seems to be where it all started. FWIW, libtool 1.x doesn't have a "--version" it seems.
It would be good to get Richard's view on this from the Fedora perspective - I've added him to the cc-list on this bug.
I'm pretty easy going on updated automake deps. In Fedora I only really care about using the latest automake and libtool packages.
So, the earliest commit we have is from 2004, and it sets the automake version to 1.6, as it was before - I'd be reticent to go earlier than that. That commit also includes the crazy nonsense in autogen.sh for picking the version, I'm not sure about that, at all! I'm tempted to remove it, but I'm concerned as I've no record of why it was done in the first place....
My inclination, after some thought, is to comment out the code in autgen.sh that tries to use specific versions, and see if it causes anyone problems. If it does, they can uncomment the code, and keep working, then we'll work out an alternative solution. If it doesn't cause problems, we're good.... Thoughts?
I've backed the automake version down to 1.6 again, and removed the stuff in autogen.sh used to select the specific version: http://git.ghostscript.com/?p=ghostpdl.git;a=commitdiff;h=c09cc83