Re: Add 'Required Tools' to README?

[Bruno Haible]

Eric Blake wrote:
> I tweaked some of the
> wording: since cc and make are used by the end user, while the rest of the
> tools are developer-only, using native cc and make instead of gcc and
> gmake helps test portability.

As you like. But I don't agree with two of these changes:

> +  + VPATH builds often need GNU make 3.79.1 or newer.

Please, can you remove that word 'often'? I'm not going to modify gnulib
for the sake of half-baken VPATH "implementations". This would be a waste
of time. And it's dishonest to say that maybe we support VPATH of Solaris
or BSD make if, in fact, we are not willing to spend time on it.

> -* GNU m4 1.4.9 or newer.
> +* GNU m4 1.4.5 or newer.

Ultimately, you know better than anyone else what's in which version of GNU m4,
but when I read this:
  http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnulib/2006-12/msg00247.html
or the m4/NEWS of

1.4.9:
  * Fix a regression introduced in 1.4.8 that made m4 dump core when
    invoked as 'm4 -- file'.
1.4.7:
  * Fix regression from 1.4.5 in handling a file that ends in a macro
    expansion without arguments instead of a newline.
1.4.6:
  * Fix buffer overruns in regexp and patsubst macros when handed a trailing
    backslash in the replacement text, or when handling \n substitutions
    beyond the number of \(\) groups.
  * Fix memory leak in regexp, patsubst, and changeword macros.
  * When loading frozen files, m4 now exits with status 63 if version
    mismatch is detected.

it makes me feel uncomfortable with any version < 1.4.7. Especially your
memory leak fixes had a tremendous positive effect on my machine.

> A bit strong on the m4 requirements, since debian stable doesn't ship
> 1.4.9 yet (I only released it last month :).

It's irrelevant what Debian ships: users who have access to the gnulib
git or cvs repository also have access to ftp.gnu.org and can install
new versions of GNU software.

Bruno