NEWS: IRIX is still supported; only SGI C compiler depcomp no longer is

This change is for the maint branch.

The only IRIX-specific support that is going to actually be removed in
the next major Automake versions is the depcomp support for the SGI
compiler.  That means that automatic dependency tracking will no
longer work with that compiler, but "normal" compilation should still
work, at least until the compiler is supported by Autoconf.

So there is no point in alarming our users by stating in the NEWS file
that "support for IRIX and the SGI compilers is going to be removed";
after all, while we don't test on nor particularly care about IRIX
anymore, that doesn't mean we are deliberately breaking it, and the
likelihood of an intended breakage there is very low.

See:
<http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/automake-patches/2013-01/msg00164.html>
<http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/automake-patches/2013-01/msg00165.html>

* NEWS (Future backward-incompatibilities: Adjust.  Improve explanation
of our rationale for dropping SGI support. Fix an unrelated typo while
at it.

Suggested-by: Peter Rosin <peda@lysator.liu.se>
Signed-off-by: Stefano Lattarini <stefano.lattarini@gmail.com>

diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 040137a..f629fe2 100644 (file)
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ New in 1.13.2:
     before Automake 1.14 is).
 
   - Automake 1.14 will drop support for the long-deprecated 'configure.in'
-    name for the Autoconf input file.  You are advised to start using
+    name for the Autoconf input file.  You are advised to start using the
     recommended name 'configure.ac' instead, ASAP.
 
   - The ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS special make variable will be fully deprecated
@@ -16,11 +16,13 @@ New in 1.13.2:
     support for AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS instead (which was introduced in
     Automake 1.13).
 
-  - Support for IRIX and the SGI C/C++ compilers will be removed in
-    Automake 1.14: they have seen their last release in 2006, and SGI
-    is expected to retire support from them in December 2013; see
-    <http://www.sgi.com/services/support/irix_mips_support.html> for
-    more information.
+  - Automake 1.14 will remove support for automatic dependency tracking
+    with the SGI C/C++ compilers on IRIX.  The SGI depmode has been
+    reported broken "in the wild" already, and we don't think investing
+    time in debugging and fixing is worthwhile, especially considering
+    that SGI has last updated those compilers in 2006, and is expected
+    to retire support for them in December 2013:
+    <http://www.sgi.com/services/support/irix_mips_support.html>
 
   - Future versions of Automake might remove support for MS-DOS and
     Windows 95/98/ME (support for them was offered by relying on the