Meson Features and Packaging

2023/07/07

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Meson, a build system for software projects, has gained popularity for its sensible and coherent approach to addressing the needs of both upstream developers and packagers. While not perfect, it offers significant improvements over previous build systems. One area of disagreement has arisen regarding Meson feature options, specifically the --auto-features=enabled option. This option, enabled by default in Arch Linux, allows all features to be enabled for convenience. However, some developers mistakenly view the absence of this option as an upstream bug. In reality, --auto-features is simply a shorthand for enabling all features. Understanding the purpose and mechanics of Meson feature options is crucial for developers and packagers to ensure reliable builds.