Re: minimum automake version

[Bruno Haible]

Hi Eric,

> Given that automake 1.9.6 has a security vulnerability, and that 
> automake 1.10/autoconf 2.62 have been out for some time now, is it time 
> to consider upgrading our DEPENDENCIES and dropping support for these 
> older tool versions?

I think for deciding this one needs to look at the versions that are
packaged with the "stable" versions of the common Linux distros.

- Ubuntu, ...
- RHEL, stable version = 5.5 [1], released just 6 months ago.
  Taking a look at 
ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/enterprise/5Client/en/os/SRPMS/
  it appears that it is shipped with automake 1.9.6.
- ...
- Slackware, stable version = 13.1 [2],
  it is shipped with automake 1.11.1 [3].

So, as long as RHEL 5 is common and still shipping with automake 1.9.6, I
would not like to drop support for it in gnulib.

Bruno


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RHEL
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slackware
[3] http://www.slackware.com/releasenotes/packages13.1.php