Akim Demaille <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> I'm sorry, but I don't quite agree: your picture lacks the Autoconf
> macro archive. Its existence makes a huge difference with the former
> state of Autoconf.
A macro archive by itself is useful but not sufficient to replace a set of
useful macros distributed with autoconf. The advantage of having the
macros distributed with autoconf is that one can then know for certain
precisely which macros are available in a given version and not include a
whole bunch of general macros in every package.
It may be worth considering whether autoconf should no longer serve as the
general-purpose macro repository as well as the infrastructure, and
instead a separate distribution with specific version numbers be created
that will. This may actually be the best of all worlds, as that package
(which would just be a collection of the best and most thoroughly tested
macro archive entries, tagged with specific version numbers so that
maintainers can tell people to get "autoconf-macros 1.5") could
potentially be maintained by separately and released on a different
schedule if necessary.
> The base layer of Autoconf is aged, it was not designed for some new
> problems, and we first have to clean it up so that everything downstream
> can use a saner ground.
That's good to hear. I'd love to see that happen. (It may be worthwhile
considering whether to just break backwards compatibility to some degree
and fix things once and for all, resulting in an autoconf 3 release.)
--
Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
