Re: gettext 0.11.2: Using autoconf 2.53 and automake 1.6.1

[Bruno Haible]

Paul Eggert writes:

> > This probably means, until most of the internationalized GNU packages
> > have published a release on ftp.gnu.org
> 
> I don't see why that's necessary.  The issue isn't whether a new
> gettext will work with an unmodified ftp.gnu.org package, ....
> The gettext audience is developers, not end
> users, so the real issue is whether a new gettext will work with the
> current development version of the package.

The gettext audience are also the Linux distributors. They often
prefer the ftp.gnu.org releases, not alpha versions and CVS
snapshots. (The same holds for some ordinary users as well.) If, for
some reason, they want to run gettextize on an ftp.gnu.org release,
it's unwelcome if that step forces them to also upgrade the entire
configure.in and *.m4 macros.

> The following packages use Autoconf versions that predate 2.13.
> 
>   cpio 2.4.2.91 uses Autoconf 2.7.
>   enscript 1.6.2 uses Autoconf 2.12.
>   hello 1.3.18 uses Autoconf 2.12.
>   sharutils 4.2c uses Autoconf 2.12.
> 
> If you like, I can submit and publish patches to these last four, as
> well as for gcal 3.01, to make sure that they work with Autoconf 2.53.
> That wouldn't be hard, and if it removes the final obstacle to
> upgrading gettext then I'm willing to do it.

For gettext to drop autoconf 2.13, I would wait for official releases
of these packages. Therefore it's best to wake up the respective
maintainers - that's also likely to fix the other bitrot that is
occurring in these packages.

Bruno