build tools standard

[Dan Mills <danmills sandmill org>]

Hi,

This is a plea to standardize on the basic build tools (automake, 
autoconf, libtool, at least) for the duration of gnome's product cycle. 
 In the short time that I've been doing the gnome 2 tinderbox 
snapshots, this has already bitten me twice.

Having parallel-installable tools is a step in the right direction, 
certainly, but it should not be used as an excuse to never agree on 
which versions of the tools to use.  My proposal is to reach a 
consensus on which tools to use at the beginning of the development 
cycle, and *require* that those versions work until release time.

Note that I am not advocating that people not use newer tools.  I am 
saying that just because one maintainer feels like using a newer tool 
shouldn't be a reason to force everyone to either upgrade to that or 
parallel-install it.  My (limited) experience tells me that the upgrade 
usually makes other modules break, and while the parallel-install is 
better, it's still a pain.  So if anyone uses a newer tool, fine, but 
it cannot be at the expense of making the standard tools break.

-Dan