Package: autoconf
Version: 2.65-2
Severity: wishlist

Hi again,

As I mentioned in http://bugs.debian.org/559636, most configure
scripts generated by autoconf fail if there is no copy of install-sh
nearby:

| configure: error: cannot find install-sh, install.sh, or shtool in "." "./.." 
"./../.."

This is to help a maintainer avoid distributing a package that will
not work appropriately on platforms with no good 'install' available.
Fixing it generally means providing an appropriate install.sh, but
consider a maintainer who runs autoconf as part of the build process:

 - If she adds the script and forgets about it, this means including a
   program bundled from elsewhere and letting it bitrot;

and on the other hand,

 - If she copies in the latest version at build time, this means
   requiring automake as a dependency on many machines where it is not
   going to be used to do anything that "touch install-sh" couldn’t do;

and even so,

 - If she stops using AC_PROG_INSTALL, this means abandoning
   'autoreconf -fi && ./configure && make && make install' on
   platforms where the only functional 'install' command is named
   'ginstall' and abandoning 'automake -fa && autoreconf -fi &&
   ./configure && make && make install' on platforms with no
   functional 'install' command.

So instead we provide our own placeholder install-sh:

        #!/bin/sh
        echo >&2 "No suitable 'install' command found.'"
        echo >&2 "If automake is installed, running 'automake -fa'"
        echo >&2 "(and ignoring the errors) might produce one."
        exit 1

Wouldn’t it be better to improve AC_PROG_INSTALL to address this case?
An argument to AC_PROG_INSTALL or command-line option to configure to
say "yes, I know install-sh is missing" would be really nice to have.

What do you think?

Jonathan



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