Magnus Hagander <magnus@hagander.net> writes:
> I reiterate my point that I think it'd be good with a dedicated VM to build
> the snapshots and releases off, that isn't affected by other changes to
> whatever machine happens to be used. This VM could then be given all the
> required autoconf versions, and it'd stay stable - and wouldn't be affected
> by choices by whatever distribution is used.
That's really not the worst part of the problem. The worst part is that
all developers who ever touch the configure script need to have the same
autoconf version installed, and when dealing with back branches need to
remember to use the right version. So I think focusing on only the
environment used for tarball-building misses the point. We need a
solution targeted at all-developers-including-Marc, not one that just
sets the release process in stone.
One idea people might suggest is to stop keeping the generated configure
script in CVS. I'm not sure that'd make things better though. We'd be
buying into the concept of trying to make configure.in work with any
autoconf version any developer might be likely to use. I'm really not
too sure what the functional incompatibilities between versions are,
but given the extent of line-by-line diffs I've seen in the output of
even adjacent versions, this isn't a question I want to take lightly.
regards, tom lane
