Since my configure scripts determine the system's capabilities
automatically, with no interactive user intervention, I decided to call
the program that generates them Autoconfig. But with a version number
tacked on, that name would be too long for old UNIX file systems, so
I shortened it to Autoconf.
In the fall of 1991 I called together a group of fellow questers after
the Holy Grail of portability (er, that is, alpha testers) to give me
feedback as I encapsulated pieces of my handwritten scripts in m4
macros and continued to add features and improve the techniques used in
the checks. Prominent among the testers were
Pinard, who came up with the idea of making an `autoconf' shell
script to run m4 and check for unresolved macro calls; Richard
Pixley, who suggested running the compiler instead of searching the file
system to find include files and symbols, for more accurate results;
Karl Berry, who got Autoconf to configure TeX and added the
macro index to the documentation; and Ian Taylor, who added support for
creating a C header file as an alternative to putting `-D' options
in a `Makefile', so he could use Autoconf for his UUCP package. The
alpha testers cheerfully adjusted their files again and again as the
names and calling conventions of the Autoconf macros changed from
release to release. They all contributed many specific checks, great
ideas, and bug fixes.
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