Maintainer friendly mode for autotools projects

[Ivan Levashew]

Autotools are by default in an user friendly mode (I don't know how to 
name it better).

User friendly mode assumes that an user compiles and installs a software 
just for himself.

As a rule of thumb, what's friendly to end users, is fatal to 
maintainers. Or, better say, friendliness doesn't stack well. There 
should be exactly one layer of friendliness: the topmost one.

Generally, I'd like build system and compiler to be as humble as 
possible. Don't run tests on my platform, don't look for libraries and 
headers in my /usr directory. If something is not specified by means of 
command line or environment variables, it doesn't exist. The only 
exception is libraries/headers provided by compiler (which is specified 
on command line anyway). OS headers should be taken from SDKs and never 
from my system.

It really annoys me that so many accidents can happen! CocoAspell 
installs its library into /usr/local/lib, and my programs accidentally 
are being linked against it! I want to be in "cross compile" mode even 
if it's not the case. That would the best service for me, because my OS 
can easily happen to be better than end user's one.

The problem is that ./configure scripts either measure my OS or guess 
values (not always correct) or abort configuration. How can I control 
this process? I'd like ./configure to retrieve values from a knowledge 
base. In abscense of such kb, there should be an option to generate all 
the measurement scripts so that I could send them to testers. Also, 
there must be an option to populate KB out of measurement results. 
Whether the feature is supported everywhere, nowhere or its support 
varies. Is there autowiki?

Most of the tutorials spot the light on user friendly mode, which isn't 
very helpful for me. Pieces of essential (for me) information are 
scattered through the darkest corners of documentation, but I think 
there should be lots of people like me demanding reliable maintainer 
environment. Would you be so kind to point me on where to look for 
information?

P. S. I normally read and post through GMANE. CCing me will trigger 
challenge-responce on bluebottle. Don't CC me.

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