>> A regular, nightly?, tarball produced from git with `make
>> distcheck' would package up a ./configure so that you could use it
>> and not git and need less installed/downloaded. But I don't know
>> if one exists, or if anyone has the time to set it up as a
>> contribution.
>
> This existed until the move from CVS to git. [...]
This is not correct. Those were simple tarballs, just packing
whatever the CVS contained. In case `configure.ac' was newer than the
`configure' script in CVS, the buildscript wouldn't update `configure'
automatically.
> Does whatever script created these daily tarballs from CVS require
> major reconstruction to use git to do the same thing?
You need an environment with all the necessary tools to run
`./bootstrap && ./configure && make dist'. To run this series of
commands, a separate host is necessary – savannah.gnu.org isn't the
right place for that.
> It does seem there's a bit of a gulf between "user who wants to
> build from the latest source" and "developer."
It's not rocket science. Running `bootstrap' will tell you exactly
what you need in case something is still missing, IIRC.
Werner
