Bug 443958

Summary:	RFE: Upgrade gm4
Product:	Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4	Reporter:	Ralf Corsepius <rc040203>
Component:	m4	Assignee:	Vitezslav Crhonek <vcrhonek>
Status:	CLOSED WONTFIX	QA Contact:
Severity:	low	Docs Contact:
Priority:	low
Version:	4.8	CC:	ovasik
Target Milestone:	rc
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2010-03-18 13:55:01 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
Bug Depends On:	443589
Bug Blocks:

Description Ralf Corsepius 2008-04-24 12:01:52 UTC

As advised, cloning bug for RHEL4

+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #443589 +++

Description of problem:
According to Eric Blake <ebb9> (upstream) gm4, all versions of gm4 prior
to 1.4.11 suffer from serious bugs, which are not unlikely to break autoconf and
to cause autoconf to generate broken configure scripts.

I would recommend to upgrade m4 on all Fedora and RH releases.

Particularily delicate: The versions of m4 as being shipped with RHEL 4 and
below are such kind of old, contemporary autoconf doesn't work on them.
=> Not upgrading m4 on these distros disqualifies RHEL <= 4 
as development environment.


-- Additional comment from vcrhonek on 2008-04-24 04:50 EST --
Ralf, I did no decision in RHEL case. Please file a bug against m4 and
particular RHEL version to let product management consider and prioritize your
request. Do the same with autoconf, if you wish new version in RHEL.

Comment 1 Ondrej Vasik 2010-03-18 13:55:01 UTC

Thanks for suggestion and heads-up. But as 4.9 is the last regular update of RHEL-4 and it's not suitable for rebases nor RFE's, closing that request WONTFIX.

Comment 2 Ralf Corsepius 2010-03-18 14:02:01 UTC

(In reply to comment #1)
> Thanks for suggestion and heads-up. But as 4.9 is the last regular update of
> RHEL-4 and it's not suitable for rebases nor RFE's, closing that request
> WONTFIX.    

Please understand that this kind of update strategy is what causes me to consider RHEL to be unsuitable for development purposes.

Comment 3 Ondrej Vasik 2010-03-19 07:17:43 UTC

Ralf, I see your point, but as update slots are usually very limited and this is not customer driven fix, it had only low chance to make it into RHEL-4. It's very probable that those guys who use RHEL for development purposes will rather use RHEL-5 or will have their own unsupported compiled versions of development tools. There is a lot of devel tools which are in RHEL-4 too old for any development work (including m4, of course).

Comment 4 Ralf Corsepius 2010-03-19 07:32:51 UTC

(In reply to comment #3)
> Ralf, I see your point, but as update slots are usually very limited and this
> is not customer driven fix, it had only low chance to make it into RHEL-4. It's
> very probable that those guys who use RHEL for development purposes will rather
> use RHEL-5 or will have their own unsupported compiled versions of development
> tools.

... or they entirely abandon using Red Hat products and switch away to using a different distro/a different vendor's product.

> There is a lot of devel tools which are in RHEL-4 too old for any
> development work (including m4, of course).    

Exactly, RHEL-4 is way too outdated and RHEL-5 isn't much better.
As I see it, they are aiming at a different market segment, excluding SW development.

On a wider scope, this is what lets me say: RHEL and Fedora EPEL are not a replacement for an Fedora LTS. Fedora's and Red Hat's management is in error to believe so and is not telling the truth when marketing RHEL as such.