Removal of the Makefile (r820) unhelpful

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I was just about to suggest this enhancement to the Makefile:

http://git.debian.org/?p=collab-maint/arduino.git;a=blob_plain;f=debian/patches/
c%2B%2B-flag-fix;hb=HEAD

when I notice that you've dropped the file entirely.

It seems clear that there are people that prefer not to install Java on
their systems, so unless there is a better way that I've not yet
discovered, the Makefile you removed would appear to be the canonical
method to achieve this.

To this end, I've recently packaged the bits of Arduino core required to
build and upload things using the command-line, so avoiding the dependency
on Java.

  http://git.debian.org/?p=collab-maint/arduino.git;a=summary

which involved other patches to the Makefile to make it more useful
stand-alone for Debian:

http://git.debian.org/?p=collab-maint/arduino.git;a=blob_plain;f=debian/patches/
debianise-makefile;hb=HEAD

some of which may be useful to incorporate into your version of the
Makefile, but of course only if you're going to keep it in the source.

If you are dropping it because it's provoking bug reports and there's no
internal interest in maintaining it, perhaps you would be willing to leave
it in the source with a comment at the top about it being broken, and
encouraging people to fix it so that only bugs with patches attached should
be considered valid, or some such.

The (suboptimal) alternative would seem to be that the maintenance of the
Makefile will end up being done in a fragmented manner in places such as
the Debian package, which will just result in duplication of effort.

Cheers, Phil.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by phil-goo...@hands.com on 2 Jan 2010 at 9:03

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Oh, just to be clear, the bit of the larger debian patch that is liable to be 
useful
in the upstream Makefile would be the build/%.o: %.cpp style targets, and 
associated
changes, as they make the Makefile more able to work in a directory other than 
the
source directory, but should still work in the traditional in-tree manner as 
well.

Original comment by phil-goo...@hands.com on 2 Jan 2010 at 9:23

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I don't have much time or attention to devote to maintaining the Makefile, and 
it's not a priority.  Even applying 
other people's patches takes work and judgement, as they sometimes have 
differing ideas about how things 
should work or what dependencies can be required.  I've already had patches 
from some people break things for 
others.  

Still, I'll send email to the developers list and maybe someone will have a 
good idea of how to maintain it.

Original comment by dmel...@gmail.com on 2 Jan 2010 at 3:29

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I just want to chime in with support for not removing the Makefile. Of course a 
broken Makefile is not ideal, but last time I tried it was possible to get it 
into a 
usable state without too much effort; certainly a better starting point than 
nothing 
at all.

I'd also be willing to put in an effort to maintaining it.

Original comment by johsh...@gmail.com on 4 Jan 2010 at 10:26

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Original comment by dmel...@gmail.com on 28 Jan 2010 at 8:49

• Changed state: WontFix
• Added labels: Component-Build