This meta package contains the components necessary to maintain packages that use the GNU Build System. These components include autoconf, automake, libtool, libiconv, and gettext -- plus their pre-requisites. Although the autotools consist primarily of perl, shell, and m4 scripts, and thus requires MSYS-based interpreters, these implementations should be installed into the /mingw directory (that is, into C:\MinGW or whatever you've chosen as the "root" MinGW path). Most developers who need the autotools will want the versions provided by this package, and not the MSYS ones provided by the MSYS System Builder (msys-dvlpr) package; the MSYS ones install into the / == /usr directory (that is, into C:\msys\1.0) and are intended for use when developing applications that use the MSYS runtime.