id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	priority	milestone	component	version	resolution	keywords	cc	blockedby	blocking	branch_state	votes
3603	Redo version detection in autoconf to use modern practices	zaytsev	andrew_b	"Currently we have a custom macro `mc_VERSION` used to autodetect the version from git tags. This is a problem, because we can't modernize our autoconf build system to use currently supported invocations of `AC_INIT` and `AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE`.

One important use case for fixing this would be to switch to `tar-pax` in our tarballs or at least set `filename-length-max=99` to catch broken tarballs on `make dist`. Currently that's next to impossible, and Travis was building broken tarballs without anyone noticing for quite some time.

The correct way to autodetect version string with autotools is to use the `m4_esyscmd_s` macro. This macro is used by autoconf itself at least since autoconf 2.62 (so, an example can be found in its source code)."	task	closed	minor	4.8.27	mc-core	master	fixed		egmont info@…			merged	committed-master