Cross compiling PARI/what about autoconf?

[Jeroen Demeyer <jdemeyer@cage.ugent.be>]

Hello PARI developers,

There is a certain thing which I have been wondering for a while, but 
now it seems to have become more serious: why does PARI not use autoconf?

I would like to cross-compile a powerpc64-unknown-linux-gnu version of 
PARI on a powerpc-unknown-linux-gnu system, but I don't really know how 
to do it (PARI Configure gives me a warning that architecture 
powerpc64-unknown-linux-gnu is not tested and it assumes that 
sizeof(long) == 4, which is clearly wrong!)

Apart from this cross-compiling issue, I think there are tons of good 
reasons to switch to autoconf.  In particular, it is something which 
people know how to use, and I am sure that it will make it easier for 
GNU/Linux distributions to include PARI.

So basically I want to know if there is a good reason why you don't 
switch to autoconf or is it just that somebody has to do it.  In the 
latter case, I propose to do it myself.  I just developed a small (math) 
project using autoconf/automake and I don't mind having a look at PARI. 
 I don't really know when I will have time for it, but if you think 
that it is a good idea, I can start thinking about it.

Cheers,
Jeroen.