CI for Autoconf (was Re: [PATCH] Revert 'Fix logic error in ...)

[Zack Weinberg]

(Extracting this to its own thread...)

On Fri, Jul 17, 2020 at 4:58 AM Ross Burton <ross@burtonini.com> wrote:
>
> Is it time that autoconf gets some CI to actually exercise all these
> paths?  It's own 'make check' followed by building a selection of
> representative software seems like it shouldn't be *too* difficult.

Indeed, something like this would be a great help.  Autoconf's own
test suite doesn't exercise the _semantics_ of individual test macros
hardly at all, and we're relying entirely on manual test cycles right
now.

We would ideally need a CI platform that the FSF approves of and that
supports a wide variety of host operating systems, including weird old
proprietary Unix.  I don't know, off the top of my head, of anything
that fits those criteria.  However, even just some basic automation
and a cron job on a small number of current OSes would be better than
nothing.

Also, despite how much easier it might make the release, it's a bigger
job than I can reasonably tackle as a volunteer.  (I will add this to
the set of things I'm trying to get funding for.)

zw