Subject: Funding for Autoconf 2.70I'm part of a small team working to get Autoconf back on track - stable, robust, and making regular releases. Can your company help?There's lots of code out there already depending on autoconf. Converting it would be risky and expensive. Plus, competing build systems don't cover all the edge cases Autoconf does.My team has already shipped a beta release of Autoconf 2.70 <https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/autotools-announce/2020-07/msg00000.html> and we intend to make the final release in October.Between now and then, we want to:
test the upcoming release against emacs, gcc, python, and other complicated autoconf scripts set up proper CI so we can find regressions get the hundreds of disorganized patches and bug reports filed, so we can prioritize and assess our backlog uplift patches that downstream redistributors already carry work with existing maintainers + community to get the project on a more sustainable pathProject manager Sumana Harihareswara (cc'd) and I have detailed plans and availability. But we have bills to pay and need your help.We already have one sponsor offering $15,000 towards this work - but only if we can find $15K in matching funds from other organizations. If you and two others each give $5,000, we can start the CI work, and we can inventory, migrate, and uplift many long-desired patches. And if we get more funding, we can do even more.Interested? We want to kick off the work before the end of July. If you can support this effort, let's talk before then and arrange payment.