[Python-Dev] Bumping autoconf from 2.68 to 2.69

[Trent Nelson]

On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 01:43:37AM -0700, Charles-François Natali wrote:
> > My understanding is that we use a specific version of autoconf.
> > The reason is that otherwise we end up with useless churn in the repo
> > as the generated file changes when different committers use different
> > versions.  In the past we have had issues with a new autoconf version
> > actually breaking the Python build, so we also need to test a new version
> > before switching to it.
> 
> Well, so I guess all committers will have to use the same
> Linux/FreeBSD/whatever distribution then?
> AFAICT there's no requirement regarding the mercurial version used by
> committers either.

    Autoconf is a special case though.  Different versions of autoconf
    produce wildly different outputs for 'configure', making it impossible
    to vet configure.ac changes by reviewing the configure diff.

    It doesn't matter which OS or Mercurial version a developer uses as
    they don't implicitly affect any versioned resources; autoconf does.

        Trent.