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Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 23:15:44 -0500
From: Stefan Seefeld <seefeld@sympatico.ca>
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Subject: Re: where is autoconf
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Kris Kennaway wrote:

>>Well, I was looking for 'autoconf' in these files but didn't find it.
>>And indeed, even though I have 'autoconf-2.59_2' installed, all I have
>>is 'autoconf259', but not 'autoconf'.
> 
> 
> This is necessary because the autoconf developers don't understand why
> backwards compatibility is important for their tools (new versions
> like 2.59 cannot be used to build old applications that were written
> for e.g. 2.13, nor can multiple versions of autoconf be easily
> installed concurrently).

I'm aware of these (very unfortunate) incompatibilities, though I had
expected the problem to be dealt with differently (for example by
setting a symbolic link to the currently active version).

> You can use the gnu-autoconf and related ports, which installs into
> /usr/local/gnu-autotools so they do not poison the build environment
> of other ports.  YOu might have to play games with PATH or other
> variables to get your application to find them.

Ok, thanks for the explanation.

Regards,
		Stefan