Bug 568039

Summary:	AC_TYPE_INT8/16/32/64_T fail
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Ralf Corsepius <rc040203>
Component:	autoconf	Assignee:	Karsten Hopp <karsten>
Status:	CLOSED WONTFIX	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	high	Docs Contact:
Priority:	low
Version:	13	CC:	eblake, karsten
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2011-06-27 15:02:01 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:

Description Ralf Corsepius 2010-02-24 16:28:45 UTC

Description of problem:

Fedora 13's autoconf suffers from this bug:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-autoconf/2010-02/msg00010.html

This bug has severe impacts on all packages in Fedora whose maintainers and upstreams refuse to comprehend that running autoreconf is harmful:

All AC_TYPE_INT<8,16,32,64>_t checks will produce bogus results.

E.g. they will result into
...
checking for int8_t... no
instead of "yes"

This is not unlikely to cause further issues inside of a package, worse, upstreams relying on this version of autoconf will ship broken configure scripts.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
autoconf-2.65-1.fc13

How reproducible:
Always.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Write a configure.ac using AC_TYPE_INT8
2. run autoreconf
3. run ./configure and check the output.
  

Additional info:
* IMO, this issue is sufficiently critical to justify resorting to patch autoconf in Fedora to prevent harm from Fedora itself. 
* Admitted, this is an upstream issue, but unfortunately upstream autoconf seems to underestimate the impact this bug has [I already encountered a package 
tripping over this bug. It was what caused me to search the net for it and caused me to file this bug]

Comment 1 Eric Blake 2010-02-24 18:07:32 UTC

Upstream autoconf 2.66 should be released soon; is it smarter to pick up the upstream patch and release 2.65-2 or just wait for upstream and release 2.66-1?

Comment 2 Ralf Corsepius 2010-02-25 05:05:28 UTC

(In reply to comment #1)
> Upstream autoconf 2.66 should be released soon; is it smarter to pick up the
> upstream patch and release 2.65-2 or just wait for upstream and release
> 2.66-1?    

Well, it's a choice between several evils, because

* If this bug in autoconf-2.65 causes damage, then the damage to FC13 already has taken place unnoticed, i.e. any fix to autoconf, whether RH/Fedora proprietary or upstream will come too late for Fedora 13 :(

Fortunately, the number of packages being affected likely is not very high, because AFAICT, use-cases of AC_TYPE_INT* are not very far spread.

* Any deviation of a distro's autotools from upstream autotools is evil, because it renders distro-independence of autotool generated files void.
That's why I am opposed to patching any autotools as part of a distro (such as Fedora).

* I don't know which other changes to autoconf-2.65 have been introduced in upstream autoconf.

That said, in an ideal world, upstream autoconf would release a 2.65.1 bug fix-release, which would only address well known and well understood bugs, which can be guaranteed not to have other side-effects.

This would also help avoiding the public outcry and accompanying discussions in Fedora, we are used to, upgrading the autotools midst of a Fedora (or worse RHEL) release comes along with.

Comment 3 Eric Blake 2010-07-20 15:15:51 UTC

autoconf 2.66 (and soon 2.67) has been released upstream.

Comment 4 Bug Zapper 2011-06-02 16:25:21 UTC

This message is a reminder that Fedora 13 is nearing its end of life.
Approximately 30 (thirty) days from now Fedora will stop maintaining
and issuing updates for Fedora 13.  It is Fedora's policy to close all
bug reports from releases that are no longer maintained.  At that time
this bug will be closed as WONTFIX if it remains open with a Fedora 
'version' of '13'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version' 
to a later Fedora version prior to Fedora 13's end of life.

Bug Reporter: Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that 
we may not be able to fix it before Fedora 13 is end of life.  If you 
would still like to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it 
against a later version of Fedora please change the 'version' of this 
bug to the applicable version.  If you are unable to change the version, 
please add a comment here and someone will do it for you.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's 
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events.  Often a 
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes 
bugs or makes them obsolete.

The process we are following is described here: 
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping

Comment 5 Bug Zapper 2011-06-27 15:02:01 UTC

Fedora 13 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2011-06-25. Fedora 13 is 
no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further 
security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug.

If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of 
Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version.

Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.