Re: [bug-gnulib] minimum autoconf version

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hello Bruno, Paul,

* Bruno Haible wrote on Thu, Jun 29, 2006 at 02:59:24PM CEST:
> Paul Eggert writes:
> 
> > The code currently assumes Autoconf 2.60 but could be backported easily
> 
> I think it's important to leave people a choice. Autoconf 2.60 will have
> different bugs than autoconf-2.59, which had different bugs than 2.57.
> I think it's fine to now drop support for autoconf-2.57 and -2.58. But
> forcing people to using a specific release is creating constraints that
> are weird to satisfy. For example, if someone wants to keep using
> po/Makefile.in.in from gettext-0.14.x, at first sight he cannot upgrade
> to autoconf-2.60 without getting warnings.

Good point.

> (OK, he can if he uses AC_DATAROOTDIR_CHECKED, but maybe he then falls
> into some bugs we don't know about yet.)

We know (well, we may not state it explicitly enough) that
AC_DATAROOTDIR_CHECKED does not only turn off the warnings, but also the
safeguard substitutions.  Which is why there is a recommendation to only
use it after a package audit for datarootdir.  Setting the macro with
gettext-0.14.x will break packages.

> A few years ago, the required versions of glibc and gcc were tied;
> likewise the versions of autoconf and automake were constrained.

Automake-1.10 will require Autoconf-2.60.  I think this is not easy to
avoid.  But luckily, it seems like it won't be such a huge burden...

Cheers,
Ralf