I noticed that Python's configure.in does not follow the autoconf style for using --enable- options. The autoconf documentation says # Some packages require, or can optionally use, other software packages # which are already installed. The user can give `configure' command # line options to specify which such external software to use. The # options have one of these forms: # # --with-PACKAGE[=ARG] # --without-PACKAGE ... # If a software package has optional compile-time features, the user # can give `configure' command line options to specify whether to compile # them. The options have one of these forms: # # --enable-FEATURE[=ARG] # --disable-FEATURE So --with- options should be used for integrating 3rd party libraries, --enable- options for features that that can be independently turned on or off. I'd conclude that the following options are provided incorrectly in Python 2.0: --with-pydebug (should be --enable-pydebug), --with(out)-cycle-gc (should be --disable-cycle-gc). Is this something that should change? Regards, Martin