Re: version.texi

[Stepan Kasal]

Hello,

On Fri, Dec 30, 2005 at 05:37:03PM -0500, Bob Rossi wrote:
> Up until now, I've never had to use the --enable-maintainer-mode switch,
> and don't want others to have to in order build out of tree. Any
> suggestions?

the short answer is:
Remove AM_MAINTAINER_MODE from your configure.ac (or configure.in).

The original author of AM_MAINTAINER_MODE now recommends against
using it.  See the Automake manual for details.

A longer answer:
With AM_MAINTAINER_MODE, some dependencies are skipped in the makefiles.
This may help to people building your package from a distribution tarball.

But when building from CVS, or when you are going to create a
distribution tarball, --enable-maintainer-mode must be used.

This means that the script "bootstrap" or "autogen.sh", which you probably
have in the CVS, should end with a message like this:
"Now run ./configure --enable-maintainer-mode [more-options]"

BTW: If you ever compiled a project from GNOME, you can see that when you
run "autogen.sh --enable-babab" then autogen.sh calls
        configure --enable-maintainer-mode --enable-babab
at the end.
(If the project doesn't use AM_MAINTAINER_MODE, --enable-maintainer-mode
is harmless.)

HTH,
        Stepan Kasal