Autodist

The Autodist is a source distribution management system that allows 
powerful mechanisms to define what is included in and excluded from a 
distribution, and what license the distribution is released under.  It is 
also used to create the actual distribution source packages.  Autodist 
allows distribution management in file, directory and file content level.  
Different distributions may include different portions of files, for 
example, excluding certain features from certain distributions.  It is 
always guaranteed that anything not defined for the distribution, is 
removed automatically (files, file content, directories), thus ensuring 
that nothing is accidentally included in the distribution.

Autodist is closely related to the Autoconf and Automake tools, and 
complements the features Autoconf and Automake provides.  It is especially 
targeted into circumstances where multiple distributions are created from 
one source tree.  The Autoconf and Automake environment is mainly designed 
for one application per one source tree situations.  Autodist provides 
mechanisms to create all kinds of distributions that can be created from 
one source tree.  To be able to use Autodist, the Autoconf and Automake 
must be installed into the system.

The motivation behind Autodist stems from need to be able to create 
multiple distributions from one large source tree in a precise and 
controllable manner.  The Autoconf and Automake provides mere basic 
control what is included in and excluded from distributions and how the 
distributions are created.  They also do not provide mechanism to define 
different licensing conditions for different distributions, or changing 
the license automatically for different user or customer purposes.  Many 
large software projects, companies and corporations have commonly been 
using Autoconf and Automake tools, but have had the need to create their 
own ad-hoc mechanisms to control distribution creation.  The Autodist 
attempts to provide a tool that any size software project or company can 
effectively use to manage their distributions.

Autodist is not a binary packaging system.  It is specificly used to 
create source distributions.  A binary packaging system, however can be 
hooked to the distribution creation process, if needed.

Read the INSTALL file on how to install the Autodist.  Refer info pages 
for Autodist documentation by giving 'info autodist'.  Mail suggestions 
and/or patches to autodist@silcnet.org, and bugs to 
autodist-bugs@silcnet.org.  Please, always include the Autodist version 
number to your email.  Give 'autodist --version' to get version.

Autodist was originally written for the SILC Project (Secure Internet Live 
Conferencing), which needed controlled mechanism to create several 
distinct distributions from one source tree.