inadvisable to have configure script send me an email when user runs it?

[Ed Hartnett]

Howdy all!

I am a developer on the scientific free software library called
netCDF. It assists in the storage and access of large multidimensional
arrays, especially for meteorologists and climate scientists.

We would like to have a better idea of who is using netCDF. It would be
great if, each time netCDF were built, we would get an email from the
build system, telling us things like what configure options were used,
what compilers were used, and what the platform was.

I had thought to use the mail command to send the mail. On platforms
without the mail command, nothing would happen. I am surprised that
there is no existing AC_PROG_MAIL macro. 

I thought I would add a --disable-unidata-email parameter to disable the
email attempt. (Which I would use myself with nightly testing.)

Is there some good reason not to do this? But I have never seen it
done...

Thanks!

Ed

-- 
Ed Hartnett  -- address@hidden