FESCo Proposal for blocking older version of autoconf & automake

[Tom Lane]

Matthias Clasen <mclasen at redhat.com> writes:
> On Mon, 2008-05-05 at 18:22 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
>> The key to avoid autotool compatibility issues is simple: Do not
>> generate autotool generated files while building.
>> Generate them off-line.

> ...which won't be easy if the autotool versions you need to generate
> them are kicked out.

Yeah.  We have a rule against shipping binary blobs.  A binary blob can
fairly be defined as a derived file that you lack the source to, or lack
the tools to get from the source to the derived file.  How is it
different if we ship an autotools-derived file that the recipient
cannot regenerate from source?  Smells like a GPL violation to me.

			regards, tom lane