[omniORB] configure an omniORB

[Stefan Seefeld]

Kevin Bailey wrote:

>> With all the respect due a package as well done as omniORB is,
>> getting omniORB compiled required a lot more than a couple
>> changes. Non-standard locations for python and gcc were just a
>> couple of my problems. autoconf automatically handles this kind
>> of thing too.
> 
Well, 'automatically' as in 'once somebody has set up such an environment'.

>> I don't know how difficult it is to maintain autoconf files but
>> there seems to be lots of volunteer projects which use it so it
>> can't be that bad. However, it would appear that if its going
>> to happen, it will at least require an autoconf expert to get
>> the ball rolling.
> 

we get *lots* of complaints about the omniORB installation process in 
the berlin project.
I can't really second that, but I'm not a good person to compare with, 
given the number
of times I already installed omniORB.
An autoconf based build system could have a minimal impact on the 
existing build system.
It could just generate the helper makefiles in config and mk, for 
example. It also could
*contain* the necessary details to build rpm, deb, and other packages.
Finally, a point I keep repeating, I would finally be able to just set 
my 'CC' variable, and
'make' would build with that, as it should be. Right now the paths are 
still hardcoded, for
whatever reason.

Autoconf is certainly not the nicest and cleanest tool ever written, but 
it's pretty powerful
and widely used.

Regards,    Stefan