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What autoconf got right

Thanks to the xz backdoor, many people are now talking about the state of Linux packaging tools, and in particular build systems. As a maintainer of Void Linux and packager of many things, I have my five cents to add, so today I’ll be the contrarian and argue what autoconf got right.

As a maintainer of Void Linux and packager of many things, I have my five cents to add, so today I’ll be the contrarian and argue what autoconf got right. As a packager, the worst thing is to find a custom made build system that behaves totally different from what we know—if you decide to write your own./configure scripts, please stick to the conventions! People who have been staring at./configure output for too long may want to disagree, but let me make my point: check-based configuration is the only way to write software that will continue to work properly in the future.

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