A DRAFT statement on our build systems for Samba 4.0

[Andrew Bartlett]

On Sat, 2012-05-19 at 01:34 +0200, Michael Adam wrote:
> Jeremy Allison wrote:
> > On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 10:44:02AM +1000, Andrew Bartlett wrote:
> > > I wanted to start a discussion about how we position and use the two
> > > build systems, so that when we get to a Samba 4.0 release, our users are
> > > clear on what build system provides what features, and why they should
> > > use it.  
> > > 
> > > I'm trying to make it clear in our user's minds that we have moved past
> > > having a 'file server' build and an 'AD build', and that for almost all
> > > users, the top level build is the one they want.
> > > 
> > > I fully expect that some of you will not agree with this DRAFT statement
> > > in whole, but then your constructive feedback is important:  If we do
> > > not have a common position, or we have technical issues that conflict
> > > with this statement, then we need to sort that out.  I want us all to
> > > understand the issues and (if technical) fix them, or (if philosophical)
> > > see if we can come up with something that we all agree on, so that when
> > > users of Samba 4.0 ask, they get a consistent answer. 
> > > 
> > > I would appreciate your thoughtful feedback and comments on this.
> > 
> > +1 on this - I think it's really well written and a very good summary
> > of where we are.
> 
> I fully agree, also on the added paragraphs.

Thanks Michael, I do really appreciate that.

> One potentially controversial point might be the advertisement of
> the waf build also as the default for building and packaging
> source3 only (for those who still want to do it).
> I am fine with it, though.

I certainly expected that this and other parts could be controversial,
but my purpose in this task is to try and address the controversy, not
to ignore it.  We have had surprisingly good results when we addressed
controversial points in the past (like choosing to require a modern
krb5, which enabled us to use GSSAPI properly in the server), and I want
our users to have a clear statement that they can follow and work from. 

I'm very happy to have a reasonable discussion with any of my fellow
developers on this point, if (unlike you) they disagree.  Informing this
decision is actually why I am asking for users who know they will be
tied to the autoconf build to detail their requirements. 

Andrew Bartlett

-- 
Andrew Bartlett                                http://samba.org/~abartlet/
Authentication Developer, Samba Team           http://samba.org