Choosing a new build system for Samba

[yaberger at ca.ibm.com]

< What about Python makes it problem? Would CMake be less of a problem in
< that regard ? Or would you rather we stick with autoconf ? 

Python is not installed by default on AIX and is not provided by IBM as a 
supported package.
I can either get a pre-compiled package from a third party source (pWare 
for example) or compile it myself. In both case, I must keep it up to date 
on my system after installing it.
I think I would prefer to maintain Python rather than CMake. At least, it 
could be useful for something else.
I would have prefered to stick with autoconf, but if this option is less 
and less viable for the developers, I can also understand that.
Something in Perl would have been great because it's usually already part 
of most unix operating system, but I don't know if such tool exist.


< I'm a bit puzzled though. You presumably have to build a whole lot of
< other things such as OpenLDAP and maybe even parts of the toolchain such
< as bison. Why is cpython such a problem?

Currently I don't. I'm only using the file sharing part of Samba 3 and I'm 
ok with just a C/C++ compiler (using IBM XL C/C++)

< If AIX is the platform in question it should be noted that pWare
< provides very good Python packages for AIX.  We use their Python in
< production on AIX 5.3.x boxes.

As much as I like what Bill is providing throught pWare, I must be able to 
update my packages with very strict time limit sometimes so I would prefer 
stick with compiling them myself.
Anyway, Bill and me are usually sharing our problem/solution when 
compiling open source software, I don't see why this would be different 
for this one :)



Regards,

Yannick Bergeron
yaberger at ca.ibm.com
IT Specialist
AIX / Samba / Load Balancer / DCE/DFS / SCM / Apache / Security / Perl 
scripting / etc.