automake-1.16i pretest available: please test

[Karl Berry]

We are pleased to announce the GNU Automake 1.16i development snapshot.
We intend for automake 1.17 to be released soon, essentially with only
bug fixes for whatever is found in this pretest. So please do test if at
all possible.

It's our primary goal to preserve compatibility. If this release of
Automake induces failure in a setup that was previously working, please
let us know.

See below for the detailed list of changes since the
previous version, as summarized by the NEWS file.

Download here:

  https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-1.16i.tar.xz
  https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-1.16i.tar.gz

Please report bugs and problems to <bug-automake@gnu.org>,
and send general comments and feedback to <automake@gnu.org>,
and patches to <automake-patches@gnu.org>.

Thanks to everyone who has reported problems, contributed patches,
and helped test Automake!

With special thanks to Bogdan, Mike Frysinger, Nick Bowler, and 
Zack Weinberg for their numerous contributions.  This release could not
have happened without them.

New volunteers to help maintain Automake are needed. Please help if
you can. For info, see this post (nothing much has changed since):
  https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/automake/2021-03/msg00018.html
and the open bug list:
  https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/pkgreport.cgi?package=automake

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New in (what will be) 1.17:

* New features added

  - AM_PATH_PYTHON will, after checking "python", prefer any Python 3
    version (latest versions checked first) over any Python 2
    version. If a specific version of Python 2 is still needed, the
    $PYTHON variable should be set beforehand.

  - AM_PATH_PYTHON will also search for Python versions 3.15 through 3.10.
    It previously searched for 3.9 through 3.0. (bug#53530)

  - RANLIB may be overridden on a per-target basis.

  - AM_TEXI2FLAGS may be defined to pass extra flags to TEXI2DVI & TEXI2PDF.

  - New option "posix" to emit the special target .POSIX for make.

  - Systems with non-POSIX "rm -f" behavior are now supported, and the
    prior intent to drop support for them has been reversed.
    The ACCEPT_INFERIOR_RM_PROGRAM setting no longer exists.

  - Variables using escaped \# will trigger portability warnings, but be
    retained when appended.  GNU Make & BSD Makes are known to support it.
    (bug#7610)

  - GNU Make's default pattern rules are disabled, for speed and debugging.
    (.SUFFIXES was already cleared.) (bug#64743)

  - For Texinfo documents, if a .texi.in file exists, but no .texi, the
    .texi.in will be read. Texinfo source files need not be present at
    all, and if present, need not contain @setfilename. Then the file name
    as given in the Makefile.am will be used.  If @setfilename is present,
    it should be the basename of the Texinfo file, extended with .info.
    (bug#54063)

  - The missing script also supports autoreconf, autogen, and perl.

* Bugs fixed

  - Generated file timestamp checks handle filesystems with sub-second
    timestamp granularity dynamically, greatly speeding up make check,
    etc. However, this requires an autom4te from Autoconf 2.72 (as yet
    unreleased) or later (or random test failures and other timing
    problems may ensue), as well as a Perl, sleep utility, and
    filesystem that supports sub-second resolution; otherwise, we fall
    back to one-second granularity as before. When everything necessary
    is supported, a new line `Features: subsecond-mtime' is printed by
    automake --version (and autom4mte --version). (bug#64756 and bug#67670)

  - The default value of $ARFLAGS is now "cr" instead of "cru", to better
    support deterministic builds. (bug#20082)

  - Dependency files are now empty, instead of '# dummy', for speed.

  - Compiling Python modules with Python 3.5+ uses multiple optimization
    levels. (bug#38043)

  - When compiling Emacs Lisp files, emacs is run with --no-site-file to
    disable user config files that might hang or access the terminal;
    and -Q is not used, since its support and behavior varies. (bug#58102)

  - Emacs Lisp compilations respects silent make output.

  - Automake no longer incorrectly warns that the POSIX make variables
    $(*D) and the like are non-POSIX. Unfortunately, the make
    implementations which do not correctly implement all the POSIX
    variables are not detected, but this seems to have little impact
    in practice. (bug#9587)

  - Pass libtool tags OBJC and OBJCXX for the respective languages.
    (bug#67539)

  - distcleancheck ignores "silly rename" files (.nfs* .smb* .__afs*)
    that can show up on network file systems.

  - tests: avoid some declaration conflicts for lex et al. on SunOS.
    (bug#34151 and others)

  - Pass any options given to AM_PROG_LEX on to AC_PROG_LEX.
    (bug#65600 and bug#65730)

* Miscellaneous changes

* Obsolescence:

  - py-compile no longer supports Python 0.x or 1.x versions.  Python 2.0,
    released in 2000, is currently the minimum required version.

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