Hi,
I've seen the code change in /python/trunk/configure.in (rev.  74072): 
it enforces a specific autoconfig version (2.61) in order to build 
python.

Unfortunately OpenSuSE 11.1 (mainstream at time of writing) has an 
updated version of autoconf 2.63 (and I think is true for Mandriva as 
well). 

Wouldn't be better to force the 2.61 being the minimal version for 
autoconf allowing more up-to-date versions to be used?

You can have a look into http://pyvm.sourceforge.net/ where continuous 
build of the python interpreter are stored for further references.