> This really shouldn't be done like this since it requires autotools for > the build environment.
koffice build-depends on automake/etc, so it shouldn't break anything. This actually doesn't change anything from koffice's behaviour over the last couple of years - I simply added the patch now because I was building from an upstream tarball instead of from a CVS checkout. Your method does look reasonable for packages that don't have patched Makefile.ams. Though koffice does (have patched Makefile.ams), and part of the reason for running automake at build time is the patches can all stay in the one place (debian/patches). This requires automake to be run at build time since the patches are applied at build time. I'm presuming the reason the debian/patches system was first introduced was to make it easier for other people to make builds from random CVS checkouts, which suits me fine. Anyway, koffice is uploading now and a whole lot of build structures are about to change with the move to alioth, so since nothing is broken I'm quite happy to leave this discussion till after the alioth thing settles down and koffice has another upstream release. b.