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The patch I'm using now only works on hppa/ia64 and isn't
anything that can coexist nicely in the source package on
other hardware/os combinations.

I've looked at
http://svn.python.org/projects/python/branches/release24-maint/

I'm accustomed to a system using autoconf/libtool/automake
(recent versions) and never committing the output of those
tools, but only running them at source package generation time.

I say this, only to point out that I'm not understanding the
principles behind what I see in subversion.  I see
configure, and also configure.in.  Which should be patched?
 And if I don't patch configure, what is the process for
regenerating it (and with what versions of automake,
autoconf, and libtool?).

Also, the most recent libtool already correctly determines
shared library extension.

So I could probably provide a patch, but would need to
understand the environment better in order to do so.