https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2349257
A few highlights:
" yet the 31,085 lines of configure for libtool still check if <sys/stat.h> and <stdlib.h> exist, even though the Unixen, which lacked them, had neither sufficient memory to execute libtool nor disks big enough for its 16-MB source code."
"This is probably also why libtool's configure probes no fewer than 26 different names for the Fortran compiler my system does not have, and then spends another 26 tests to find out if each of these nonexistent Fortran compilers supports the -g option."
"so the input files for autoconf happen by copy and paste, often hiding behind increasingly bloated standard macros covering "standard tests" such as those mentioned earlier, which look for compatibility problems not seen in the past 20 years."
Looks pretty horrible to me. I think removing all that might piss off someone but they're refusal to upgrade shouldn't hold back everyone. Besides, why would I want all those tests running if most of them make no sense and it just adds overhead? And in an otherwise-unused language (M4)?
Looks like crap to me. They should get rid of it.
Yeah, it's clunky and obtuse, but it works to give you portability to just about every system, POSIX or not. And the free support is first class if you ever have a problem.
The problem isn't even that the answers to those question are bad and preclude all changes... the problem is that there isn't even a concrete method for determining the answer! And you only need to have experience with trying to remove one or two features before the desire will be seared out of you by firebrands wielded by angry crowds.
I've tried to remove much simpler "obviously unused features" out of much smaller codebases in environments all under the control of one corporation and gotten burned pretty bad, to say nothing of autotool's scope.