Re: on the way of doing the alpha release

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Another status update (finished items removed):

* Ralf Wildenhues wrote on Fri, Apr 07, 2006 at 09:21:44PM CEST:
>
> - autoconf-archive URL:
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/autoconf-patches/2006-04/msg00150.html

Upstream is looking into this.  We may need to point to the new URL,
though (but this can safely wait after the alpha).

> Then there's the gnulib-additions patch.

The non-range part of this is applied; the rest postponed.


- After testing CVS Autoconf on some packages, I believe that this patch
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/autoconf-patches/2006-04/msg00045.html
will be the single largest source of subtle errors stemming from users'
or third-party macros, in packages using C99 or C++, or users trying to
compiler some C sources with a C++ compiler.  For example, to account
for the latter, gnulib macros would need several changes.

Should we try to scan the arguments of AC_LANG_PROGRAM and friends for
presence of
  \<exit *(
and absence of
  <c?stdlib.h>

and for matching sources issue a warning when autoupdate is run?
(This may have a fairly large autom4te runtime overhead.)

In any case, this needs prominent mention this in the release
announcement (additionally to the NEWS excerpt).


- Also, there's the datarootdir issue
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/autoconf/2006-04/msg00060.html
that will need special mention.  Not sure whether it would need
a patch right now.


In any case, I can probably do the release either tonight (European
time), or it would have to wait for a few days.

Cheers,
Ralf