Autoconf release status update for 2020-11-16; call for help

[Zack Weinberg]

It’s been two weeks since the release of autoconf 2.69d.

I’m not going to be able to work on autoconf at all from the beginning
of December until mid-January, so I’d really like to make the final
release of 2.70 by the end of November, to avoid losing momentum.  For
this to happen, I need help with the three remaining critical bugs:

* Regressions
  * `AC_LANG_PUSH/AC_LANG_POP` malfunction inside AC_DEFUN (#110294)
  * `AX_PROG_CC_FOR_BUILD` broken with 2.69c (#110350)

* Bug in a new feature
  * autoreconf --install --force may not install
config.sub/config.guess (#110371)

(see `https://savannah.gnu.org/support/?BUGNUMBER` for details):

110371 should be easy; 110294 and 110350 are harder.

I am again asking everyone reading this email to work on these bugs if you can.

I’d also like to solicit your opinion on how important it is to fix
each of these bugs before the release.  Breaking
`AX_PROG_CC_FOR_BUILD`, for instance, is nasty for packages that need
to compile programs to run on the build machine during a
cross-compiled build, but that’s a somewhat unusual requirement. Given
everyone’s limited time, it might make sense to put out 2.70 with some
of these bugs unfixed, and warn people that if they do certain
specific things they should hold off on upgrading until we can put out
a point release sometime next year.

Testing is still very helpful, and I will still consider additions to
the list of release blockers, but only 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.)

(For an up-to-the-minute list of release blockers please consult this
very long URL:

https://savannah.gnu.org/support/?group=autoconf&func=browse&set=custom&msort=0&status_id[]=1&resolution_id[]=0&assigned_to[]=0&category_id[]=0&severity[]=0&priority[]=100&priority[]=2&priority[]=3&priority[]=4&priority[]=5&priority[]=6&priority[]=7&priority[]=8&priority[]=9&summary[]=&details[]=&advsrch=1&msort=0&chunksz=50&spamscore=5&report_id=101&sumORdet=0&morder=bug_id%3E&sumOrdet=0&order=bug_id

and ignore the meta-bug #109513.)

zw