Re: AC_PACKAGE_VERSION visibility slightly changed in autoconf-2.69c. Bug or feature?

[Paul Eggert]

On 10/21/20 6:15 AM, Zack Weinberg wrote:
> We*could*  add a special case in AC_INIT where, if any of the third,
> fourth, or fifth arguments contain the literal strings
> `AC_PACKAGE_NAME` or `AC_PACKAGE_VERSION`, those are replaced with the
> values of the first and second argument, respectively.  This would
> keep the GHC code working as-is.  I'm not sure whether that's a good
> idea; cc:ing Paul and Eric for their thoughts.

I'm not following all the details here, but my kneejerk reaction is that we 
should avoid hacks like that. If AC_INIT is that poorly designed, the best 
approach might be to come up with a new macro that is better, and suggest that 
people use that instead AC_INIT; if so, perhaps the hack you suggest is the best 
we can do for the now-obsolescent AC_INIT.