Re: autoconf's AC_PROG_GNU_M4 macro (from m4.m4) and the --gnu flag to gm4

[Eric Gallager]

On Sun, Jul 21, 2024 at 1:19 AM Collin Funk <collin.funk1@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Eric Gallager <egall@gwmail.gwu.edu> writes:
>
> > Hi, I'm writing because I will occasionally see messages like the
> > following from CI systems (specifically GitHub Actions' macOS runners)
> > when they attempt to run autoconf:
>
> GitHub actions should have homebrew preinstalled which you can use to
> get a recent version of GNU m4 [1] [2].
>

Yeah I tried installing it that way, but autoconf still insists on
trying to use the one from Xcode anyways...

> I assume there are probably more issues other than '--gnu' using the
> preinstalled GNU programs on macOS. At least I remember the preinstalled
> bash being ancient so I assume m4 is the same.
>

Yeah, Apple stopped updating it after the GPL3 license change, as they
did with pretty much all of their packages that made the GPL2-to-GPL3
license transition...

> Collin
>
> [1] 
> https://github.com/actions/runner-images/blob/main/images/macos/macos-12-Readme.md
> [2] https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/m4