tarball builds (was: [PATCH] Enable customisation for electric-quote-mode chars)

[Stefan Monnier]

> It's a bit tricky as we don't want to require texinfo for ordinary installs.

I wonder how important this is, tho.

I have the impression that nowadays it is at least as common to build
from Git as it is to build from the tarball.  And building from the
tarball will usually involve installing stuff anyway.
E.g. to build Emacs from the tarball in a "typical" GNU/Linux install,
a common recommendation is to do something like:

    apt-get build-deps emacs24

in which case, adding texinfo as a requirement is no big deal.

I have the impression that the same holds for Mac OS X and for Windows
(tho the tools involved are similar) where users also already have to
install a bunch of dependencies and "one more or one less" doesn't make
much difference because those dependencies are provided by a packaging
tool (Macport's, Mingw's, you name it).
[ Not sure about the FreeDOS case, OTOH.  ]

So I think we should consider getting rid (maybe progressively) of the
special tarball format, and just put a plain Git checkout in the
tarballs.  This will also simplify our general build procedure and
instructions since there'll only be one case to consider rather
than two.


        Stefan