Re: restrict.m4: do not punish autoconf 2.59 users

[Bruno Haible]

Stepan Kasal wrote:
> perhaps
>
> m4_ifndef([AC_C_RESTRICT],
> AC_DEFUN([gl_C_RESTRICT],
> [...]
> ])
> ])
>
> could be better.

And what would we put into modules/restrict then?

We are trying to keep the names of gnulib's autoconf macros stable, even
though the contents constantly changes. The reason is that several projects
still don't use gnulib-tool and have to update their configure.ac when
the autoconf macro name changes. A configure.ac which is valid with only
some versions of autoconf but not with others is the last thing that we
would want.

> But: how many people are using current gnulib with Autoconf 2.57 or
> earlier?
>
> I know it is only two releases behind the latest, but OTOH, it is
> 3 years old.
>
> Current gnulib is mostly used for bootstraps of CVS checkouts, so I guess
> requiring Autoconf 2.59 may not be a bad idea.

There is no need to spend time discussing this. It is not useful to
gratuitously reduce the number of available choices, and you have not
said why supporting autoconf-2.57 would be a problem.

Bruno