Re: [Bug-wget] new alpha tarball wget-1.12-2460.tar.bz2

[Steven M. Schweda]

From: Micah Cowan <address@hidden>

> Looks like it's still there, at least in the development sources
> repository. [...]

   That's a mercy.  Good news is always appreciated.

>  To get those, you need to use the Bazaar SCM's client
> ("bzr"); once you obtain that, you can use
> 
>   bzr branch http://bzr.savannah.gnu.org/r/wget/trunk
> 
> to obtain the dev sources.
> 
> It is not currently set up for inclusion in official source release
> distributions (I was probably waiting for a "final" version of the
> stuff); but that's easily fixable when everything's ready, by adding the
> vms/ dir's contents to the EXTRA_DIST variable in Makefile.am.
> 
> Since these are dev sources, you'll have to have GNU automake and
> autoconf, and (now) git to obtain gnulib... if you have all the prereqs
> (not sure what the complete set is), then you run the "bootstrap" script.

   Every procedure which begins with "once you obtain that" is a problem
around here, which is why life would be better in all ways if the VMS
stuff were in the main stream, so that when a kit like this appeared, I
might be able to do something with it directly.

   I probably could fire up some UNIX (-like) system, and start to pull
on that GNU thread, which might eventually end in success, but it's the
long way around in my environment.

   On the other hand, a quick look at this "tar" kit suggests that it's
not really so ready-to-use as I had expected.  ("lib/getopt.in.h", for
example, is littered with "@"s.)  But it sounded good when I read the
announcement.

   Who's the chicken and who's the egg in this situation?

   P.S.:

   I know that all the serious folks in the world have all the GNU
infrastructure in place, but wouldn't a clever repository-access system
be able to grind out a ready-to-use distribution kit upon user request? 
Just a thought.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

   Steven M. Schweda               address@hidden
   382 South Warwick Street        (+1) 651-699-9818
   Saint Paul  MN  55105-2547