Should autogen.sh create its files in $builddir or $srcdir? I had a poke around the web and it looks like everyone else's autogen.sh scripts create stuff in $srcdir.
The general principle of allowing $builddir and $srcdir to differ is _usually_ good. (E.g. see bug 83.) For instance a site with multiple architectures can have many $builddir all mutually independent, maintained from a common, effectively read-only, $srcdir. But I don't think that principle applies to "autogen.sh", whose job is much earlier in the chain, building the "configure" script etc. in the first place. Indeed, the whole purpose of "configure" is to be common across everything. The typical end-site will run "./configure" on whatever they have, and it is only AFTER configure, not before, that system-dependencies enter the picture. By far the primary purpose of autogen.sh is to assist the package maintainers: the Samba team, and the relatively few folk who diddle with ".in" files. The typical "grab the 'tar' file" site will simply use the common "configure", itself generated by those package maintainers. So, despite my being a strong advocate of clear separation of $srcdir from possibly multiple $builddir, I think that "autogen.sh" is the exception to that good general rule. (There may be a residual counter-argument in favour of autogen.sh separation (of $builddir and $srcdir) for those "pre-configure" folk who wish to test different versions of autoconf itself...) Hope that helps the thought-process!
David, your argument was pretty similiar to mine for keeping things the way they are. I couldn't decide either way but after reading your comments I think this is not a bug.
originally reported against 3.0aph24. Bugzilla spring cleaning. Removing old alpha versions.