Subject: bug#71847: Self-inflicted problem, libtool and automake installed to different prefixes

From: Karl Berry <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2024 16:27:36 -0600

slow every bootstrap for us (which we do frequently) to work around a
    relatively rare issue.

Nick's solution of using acinclude.m4 seems ideal. But just in case: I
think you could also avoid the extra libtoolize calls by doing them only
if the automake --version is x.y.9*, i.e., a test release. Or, more
directly, check for $automakeprefix>/share/aclocal*/libtool.m4 and only
do the libtoolize if not already there.  I mean, where
  automake_prefix=$(dirname $(which automake))/.. 
Or something like that. You get the idea, I'm sure :).

    But wouldn't it be better to make such a solution part of Automake
    and have it gracefully handle this situation for everyone?

Sure, clearly a graceful solution for everyone would be ideal. But in
terms of the pending 1.17 release, I don't want to do something as
potentially destabilizing as defining a stub LT_INIT in aclocal. That
seems like it has great potential for confusion and problems.

Also, looking at Automake/Variable.pm, there are a bunch of
various/functions handled in the same way, e.g., CC vs. AC_PROG_CC
just like LIBTOOL vs. LT_INIT. Although I think LT_INIT is the only one
not defined by Automake or Autoconf.

At any rate, It would also be nice to see an actual patch, since my
knowledge of aclocal/automake<->libtool interaction is limited, at best,
so I'm not sure offhand where or how to make such a change.

Meanwhile, I'll at least tweak the (test relese) NEWS and error message
as you suggested. --thanks, karl.