Subject: bug#79419: "automake --add-missing" should not install an obsolete texinfo.tex file

From: Collin Funk <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2025 15:37:26 -0700

Karl Berry <[email-masked]> writes:

>     but what about a mode where it retrieves the latest version of
>     each file that is frequently updated, directly from its official VCS
>     source?
>
> It's useful, but seems far from Automake's core purpose. It seems better
> to me as a separate script than as part of Automake.
>
> And that script has already been written, more or less. It's what
> gnulib/config/srclist-update does, as to keep the common files up to
> date in gnulib -- so everyone else can just get them from there (gnulib)
> and not to have trawl around different repos. --thanks, karl.

+1, it is probably just easier to pull in auxiliary files (e.g.
config.sub, config.guess, texinfo.tex, etc.) from Gnulib. Since those
will be updated daily with changes, if any.

Also, ideally you would use a mirror to not make the Savannah situation
worse. The Savannah git mirror works [1]. Or also the GitHub mirror
maintained by GNU Coreutils maintainers [2].

Collin

[1] https://https.git.savannah.gnu.org/git/gnulib.git
[2] https://github.com/coreutils/gnulib