R: [Gdal-dev] GNU make build system update

[Amici Alessandro]

Norman,

> > so i will commit the needed changes and the configure script built with 
> > autoconf 2.57 later.
> 
> AFAIK no reason to bump it any higher then the minimum required for 
> libtool support < 2.52 > as higher numbered versions if installed should
> just work :-)

i'm not sure i understand what you mean.

you don't need autoconf or libtool installed at all for normal
configuration.
you only need autoconf when generating new a configure script and libtool
when 
you want to update the related shipped files to a new libtool release.
that is, you only need them if you hack specific parts of the build system.

if you intend "don't depend on _newer features_ than the ones in 2.52" then
i 
agree. however i intend to use the autoconf 2.57 to produce the shipped 
configure script in order to get the latest bug fixes.

this means:
- if you need a local hack into the configure script you may use autoconf
2.52 
(if it doesn't work we should try to fix it)
- if you are going to check in a new configure script then i'd prefer we
agree 
that this is produced with a specific autoconf version (my vote is for 2.57)

in order to reduce merge loads

cheers,
alessandro