[Nmh-workers] Minimum autoconf version required to compile nmh

[Earl Hood]

I have not compiled from source in sometime, but want to
try out the latest changes, but hit a snag with running
autogen.sh.

Apparently, CentOS 5.7 version of autoconf is older than
what the nmh build process says is required.  CentOS 5.7
provides autoconfig 2.59 but nmh is configured to require
2.61 and later.

Before I go off to download and build the latest version
of autoconf, what are the reasons that 2.61 is the
minimal version?

Searching the commit archives, looks like the autoconf
version number was up'ed to 2.61 on Nov 19, 2010 (so
it has definitely been some time since I've built from
scratch):

http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/nmh-commits/2010-11/msg00004.html

I guess this leads up to the follow-up question: What
are the minimal requirements needed to build nmh
from repository checkout?

The docs/README.developers states the following:

  If you wish to change the `configure' script or its related
  files, you'll need to first install GNU m4, available
  from <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/m4/> and then GNU autoconf
  (<ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/autoconf/>).  Nmh is currently using a
  minimum of autoconf 2.54.


--ewh