[OpenAFS-devel] Autoconf 2.60 requirement

[Jason Edgecombe]

Andrew Deason wrote:
> A little while ago while implementing some positional I/O enhancements
> for the volume package, the non-Windows build system started using
> AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS. (In the specific case of the positional I/O
> stuff, it was for pread/pwrite prototypes, but it does other things.)
> AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS only exists in autoconf 2.60 and newer.
>
> For me, and the few people discussing this at the time, this isn't much
> of a problem; usually we run regen.sh on systems with newish autoconf's.
> But doing this means that running regen.sh will not work (by default)
> on, for example, RHEL5. Debian Lenny is fine, as is at least OS X 10.6,
> and Solaris with OpenCSW. I assume modern Fedora, OpenSuSE (not SLES),
> OpenSolaris, etc are fine, too.
>
> Running regen.sh can occur on any machine before you build, but it can
> get a bit annoying if you're used to just pulling from git and building
> on systems with older autoconf's. This email serves to publicly notify
> people that this has happened, and to welcome any objections people may
> have. This probably should have been sent out before we made the move to
> require 2.60, but when AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS was first added, I
> didn't realize it was a new autoconf addition. 'Oops'
>
> Although right now git master requires autoconf 2.60 to regen, it's
> still pretty easy to switch it back. If nobody objects, we're going to
> keep using more autoconf features that require 2.60, so it will become
> more difficult to switch it back over time. So, if you build on
> non-Windows directly from git often, and this bothers you, it would be
> best to speak up now before we can't change it back.
>   

Will this change the ability to compile production releases from source 
on older platforms?

Thanks,
Jason