2.54 and 1.7

[Akim Demaille]

Hi all!

There is something which prevents the release of Autoconf 2.54 and
therefore Automake 1.7: someone provided a patch, which I stupidly
accepted, that extends autoconf (the executable) with a means to use
user installed macros *directly* (no aclocal.m4 or acinclude.m4).

This is against the idea of always producing self-contained tarballs
(selfcontainedness is also what frees us from huge version-dependency
mightmares of individual .m4 files).

Nervertheless, the rest of the patch is fine: it helps us moving
toward the Autoconf native replacement of aclocal (which must go away
from Automake).

So, my proposal is:

1. disable this ``feature''
2. release 2.53c asap
3. release 1.6d asap
4. wait
5. release 2.54 and 1.7 (end of august or septembre)
6. as soon as possible replace aclocal
7. fix 2.54 and 1.7 bugs
8. release 2.55 and 1.8

2.55 and 1.8 will free us once for all from aclocal issues.

What do you people think?