I also would prefer not requiring ordinary installers to run mktests.sh, due to the portability issues. (Do we require 'awk' anywhere else, for example.)
This can all wait until after 2.60 comes out, but even then I'd prefer an approach where the tarball contains all the files that can be produced portably. If this requires putting more stuff into CVS than the absolute minimum, then that's OK. Our goal is to minimize the overall work, not merely to minimize what's in CVS.
