HEAD: patch queue

[Ralf Wildenhues]

I believe I have the distribution issues with libltdl sorted out.
In fact, along the way I fixed a few other things.

I'll be replying to this mail with a number of patches, separated by
logical changes, and *should* work in the order posted (I hope).
- two patches for compatibility with older Automake
- several (dunno how many yet) patches to fix the actual `make dist' 
  stuff for clients.

I you like me to wait for approval for any of these (longer than the
usual 72 hrs), please say so.


After this round of patches has found its way in, all that keeps
us from releasing IMHO:

- documentation updates: some pending user patches, and (important!)
  README/README.alpha updates on how to use the new testsuite, and
  how to report failures it may show,

- the potential hang with non `-c -o' compilers
  (I have a half-baked fix for this)

- the regression on BeOS (and other need_lib_prefix systems),


For the alpha release, I'd probably be ok if we did only the
README/README.alpha updates and ignored the rest.  We'd be
fooling ourselves if we thought the next release won't turn up
stuff that wanted another one afterwards (esp. missing forward
ports).

So, really I think we're not in great but in good shape, soon.

Cheers,
Ralf