Re: [PATCH 00/25] alsa-tools: efw-downloader: add initial version of firmwre downloader for Echo Audio Fireworks devices

[Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>]

On Thu, 27 Aug 2020 14:24:42 +0200,
Takashi Sakamoto wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Wed, Aug 26, 2020 at 01:31:53PM +0200, Takashi Iwai wrote:
> > On Wed, 26 Aug 2020 11:32:58 +0200,
> > Takashi Sakamoto wrote:
> > > 
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > Would I expect any reaction by maintainers of alsa-tools repository for
> > > the patches?
> > 
> > I'm reviewing those patches now.
>  
> Thanks for your review.
> 
> > Since it's based on meson build, it'll be tricky to include this in
> > alsa-tools whether others are all autoconf.  The tarball creation is
> > done in the top directory and that assumes the execution of "make
> > alsa-dist" in each subdirectory.  Without this integration, the
> > directory won't be included in the release.
> > 
> > Could you work on it, too?
> 
> I didn't have enough care of distributing the package. Thank you for the
> indication.
> 
> Although it's possible to write configure.ac/Makefile.am for
> efw-downloader, I'd like to use meson.build for my convenience, especially
> for the convenience of gnome module[1] in meson (Nowadays software in GNOME
> project including GLib is mostly build by meson).
> 
> As long as I know, the concept of release creation in GNU Autotools is
> different from the one in meson build system. GNU Autotools distributes
> scripts generated from Makefile.am/configure.ac and so. On the other
> hand, meson distributes files maintained by git or mercurial.
> 
> If we have a space to make enough arrangement for alsa-tools, the
> top-level Makefile should be changed to have two variables for
> subdirectories which includes software built by GNU Autotools and the
> others, then be changed further for configure/install/alsa-dist/clean
> targets.
> 
> Nevertheless, the idea to mix all of software built by several types of
> build system into one repository is not so convenient itself. I'll take
> more time to investigate further for better packaging of alsa-tools.
> (Tools like Android repo is a bit over-engineering in the case, mmm)
> 
> I decline the patchset for now.

OK.  It's indeed awkward to mix up both auto-tools and meson.
So the more suitable option would be either to modernize everything
with meson, or just create a configure.ac for efw-downloader.
Maybe the latter is easier, as the dependency would be only about
hinawa and the check via pkgconfig is trivial even with automake.
But, obviously, modernization is more appealing (with a risk of
breakage, as always :)


thanks,

Takashi