[PATCH RFC 0/2] Makefile: deprecate autoconf build infrastructure

From: Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
Date: Mar 4, 2026, 08:22 UTC
Message-ID: <20260304-pks-autoconf-deprecation-v1-0-f5b611b13138@pks.im>

Hi,

roundabout 1.5 years ago we had a long discussion that eventually led to a rough consensus that we'd rather want to get rid of our autoconf build infrastucture. This eventually led to the introduction of Meson to cover this use case, which has stabilized for quite a while by now.

This patch series thus starts the deprecation period of the autoconf build infrastructure. Target for removal is Git 2.55 for now, but I'm very open for discussions here. I also assume that depending on feedback from packagers we may need to adapt the timeline.

Thanks!

Patrick

---
Patrick Steinhardt (2):
      INSTALL: recommend Meson instead of autoconf
      Makefile: deprecate autoconf build infrastructure

 INSTALL      | 11 +++++------
 configure.ac | 32 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 37 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)

--- base-commit: 2cc71917514657b93014134350864f4849edfc83 change-id: 20260302-pks-autoconf-deprecation-4657b6fc83aa