Re: Autoconf 2.70 release status update as of 2020-11-02

[Lars Wendler]

Hi Zack,

Am Mon, 2 Nov 2020 17:23:29 -0500
schrieb Zack Weinberg <zackw@panix.com>:

> It’s been five weeks since the release of autoconf 2.69c.  Many bugs
> have been fixed, and I had hoped to be able to put out the final
> release of 2.70 this week, but there are still some important bugs
> that need to be fixed before we can do that.
> 
> (Testing is still very welcome, but I recommend you work from autoconf
> git trunk - https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/autoconf.git - rather
> than continuing to use 2.69c.  I can make another beta release if
> that would be helpful.)

If it's not too much trouble, please roll another beta release as we
(Gentoo) do tinderbox runs with autoconf-2.69c and already
found a couple of possible issues[1].

> Here is my current list of issues that ideally would be addressed
> before the release; for each, see
> `https://savannah.gnu.org/support/?BUGNUMBER` for details.
> 
>  * Regressions
>    * `AC_LANG_PUSH/AC_LANG_POP` malfunction inside AC_DEFUN (#110294)
>    * `AX_PROG_CC_FOR_BUILD` broken with 2.69c (#110350)
>    * `AC_INIT` quoting headaches (#110349)
>    * Broken `AC_PROG_LEX` macro (#110312) (unreproducible)
> 
>  * Bugs also present in 2.69
>    * Replace autom4te output file atomically (#110305)
>      (Debian carries a patch for this, but their implementation is not
>      ideal.)
>    * Parallel autotest produces mangled output on Solaris 10 (#110354)
>      (cosmetic; might not be fixable)
> 
>  * Highly desirable enhancements
>    * Revise documentation of when configure enters cross-compilation
>      mode (#110347)
>    * Make it possible to request a specific (non-latest) version of a
>      language standard from `AC_PROG_CC` etc (#110286)
> 
> At this stage I will only be accepting additions to this list if they
> are regressions from 2.69.  If you discover, or already know of,
> regressions from 2.69 that aren’t on this list, please **file issues
> in Savannah** for them.  It makes quite a bit of extra work for me if
> I have to copy bug reports from email into Savannah.
> 
> (Please do also file issues in Savannah for any other bugs you find,
> but make clear that it is not a regression and I’ll mark it as not
> blocking 2.70.)
> 
> Unfortunately, as of this week, the funding I had to work on the 2.70
> release has been completely used up.  I’m happy to continue as
> volunteer release manager for 2.70, but I cannot promise to fix all of
> these bugs myself using only unpaid hacking time.  I’m asking everyone
> reading this email to chip in and help with these bugs so the 2.70
> release can be as good as possible.  In most cases, the problem is
> clear and we just need to develop and test the fix.
> 
> I’m going to send an email like this every week from now on until the
> release happens.
> 
> zw
> 

[1] https://bugs.gentoo.org/732648

Thanks and kind regards
-- 
Lars Wendler
Gentoo package maintainer
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