Re: [PATCH] Add cross-compilation guesses for Midipix

[Bruno Haible]

Hi,

Red wrote:
> * m4/calloc.m4: When cross-compiling, use the
> result from native compilation.
> * m4/canonicalize.m4: Likewise.
> ...

1) First, a formal remark. I'm not very inclined to take patch contributions
from a pseudonymial identity.

  - Whoever contributes a patch should take responsibility for it. That
    means, accept a negative impact on their reputation if the patch is
    wrong. This requirement cannot be fulfilled by a pseudonymial identity,
    except for very well-known ones (like "Willy Brandt" was in Germany).

  - We are now in a world where fake contents can be easily generated, see
    GitHub co-pilot, ChatGPT, Bing, Google Bard, etc., and we need to start
    now, to protect us against such fake contents, like we learned to
    identify classical spam in the past. Identity is an element in any
    defense against fake contents (since it's too easy to set up fake
    accounts automatically).

So, please use your real name, be it Ørjan Malde, Rumpelstilzchen, or
whatever.

2) I understand from [1] that midipix is based on musl libc, with the
   Linux kernel replaced with a 'psxscl' layer that is based on Windows
   native libraries.

   But your patch appears to be inserting only "guessing yes" values for
   midipix, even in those areas where musl's configure results are not "yes"
   (e.g. in canonicalize.m4), and in those areas where the previously
   known configure results are derived from the Linux kernel's behaviour
   (such as fchdir.m4 and rename.m4).

   If your configure guesses are just optimistic guesses, then you can
   achieve the same effect by passing the configure option
     --enable-cross-guesses=risky
   each time you build a package.

   I'm saying this because I get the feeling that 'midipix' is work-in-
   progress, given the secret nature of internals of the project [2][3]
   and the lack of 'psxscl' in [4]. And if it's work-in-progress, the
   configure results will certainly change until the first release.

   It seems safer, instead, to treat 'midipix*' like 'musl*' everywhere.
   Not only in the cross-compilation guesses but also in m4/musl.m4,
   m4/pthread_rwlock_rdlock.m4, m4/setlocale_null.m4 and so on. Do you
   agree?

Bruno

[1] https://midipix.org/
[2] https://github.com/midipix-project
    "This organization has no public members."
[3] https://gist.github.com/DavidEGrayson/65cfc653e6d0aeb08afc
    -> [1] ->
    "To view the most recent changes, please join the project's libera
     irc channel (#midipix) and ask for the address of the internal
     repositories."
[4] https://dev.midipix.org/