Re: config.sub/config.guess using nonportable $(...) substitutions

[Nick Bowler]

On 2021-03-08, Tim Rice <tim@multitalents.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 8 Mar 2021, Nick Bowler wrote:
[...]
>> These scripts using $(...) are incorporated into the recently-released
>> Automake 1.16.3, which means they get copied into packages bootstrapped
>> with this version.  So now, if I create a package using the latest bits,
>> configuring with heirloom-sh fails:
>>
>>   % CONFIG_SHELL=/bin/jsh jsh ./configure CONFIG_SHELL=/bin/jsh
>>   configure: error: cannot run /bin/jsh ./config.sub
>
> But why would you use CONFIG_SHELL= to specify a less capable shell?
> It is there to specify a more capable shell in case it is not already
> detected.

It is simply a proxy to test Solaris /bin/sh behaviour using a modern
GNU/Linux system.  This is much easier and faster than actually testing
on old Solaris systems and, more importantly, anyone can download and
install this shell as it is free software and reasonably portable.

Obviously I can successfully run my scripts on GNU/Linux using a modern
shell such as GNU Bash.  But that's not the point: Autoconf and friends
are first and foremost portability tools.  For me the goal is that this
should be working anywhere that anyone might reasonably want to run it.

But right now, it seems these portability tools are actually *causing*
portability problems, rather than solving them.  From my point of view
this is a not so great situation.

Cheers,
  Nick