Propose dropping autotools / autoconf builds

[schwehr]

GDAL and PROJ have dropped autotools / autoconf / automake / configure etc. Can libgeotools do the same?

If that works, what is the process for communicating the proposed change and voting on it? Or do we not worry about that kind of process here?

[rouault]

#126 is probably a preliminary step. I'm pretty sure there might be other details we'd find out on the road if we engage this.
Probably the type of question to publicize on https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/geotiff although the community behind libgeotiff is pretty thin. AFAIR there's no libgeotiff PSC.
That will certainly impact packagers (only checked conda-forge/libgeotiff-feedstock that uses CMake for both *nix & Windows, but I suspect most Linux distro still use autoconf, although migrating to CMake shouldn't be that a big deal)
To be honest (take into account my general lack of enthusiasm due to the season and other unknown reasons), given the small size and slow pace of libgeotiff which is probably feature complete at that point, I'm wondering if the benefits out-weights the efforts. If someone wants to put the efforts & deal with the consequences, I'm fine.