Inital make zlib test required on platforms other than wasi, remove wrong comments, add news/whatsnew entries

Author: StanFromIreland

Doc/whatsnew/3.14.rst

@@ -1310,6 +1310,12 @@ Build changes
 * GNU Autoconf 2.72 is now required to generate :file:`configure`.
   (Contributed by Erlend Aasland in :gh:`115765`.)
 
+* zlib is now officially required to build CPython.
+  It is still technically possible to build CPython without it for special needs, like bootstrapping.
+  Such builds are not supported, but we can accept pull requests to keep them working.
+  As an exception, zlib is not required on WASI.
+  (Contributed by Stan Ulbrych in :gh:`xxxxxx`.)
+
 .. _whatsnew314-pep761:
 
 PEP 761: Discontinuation of PGP signatures

Lib/encodings/zlib_codec.py

@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
 """
 
 import codecs
-import zlib # this codec needs the optional zlib module !
+import zlib
 
 ### Codec APIs
 

Lib/test/test_zlib.py

@@ -8,8 +8,15 @@
 import sys
 from test.support import bigmemtest, _1G, _4G, is_s390x
 
+# Building CPython without zlib is not supported except WASI.
+#
+# Anyone who wants build CPython this way should be prepared to patch it,
+# but the core team may help getting those patches to the main branch
+# (as that’s the place where multiple third parties can cooperate).
+#
+# For tests to pass without zlib, this file needs to be removed.
 
-zlib = import_helper.import_module('zlib')
+zlib = import_helper.import_module('zlib', required_on=('linux', 'android', 'ios', 'darwin', 'win32', 'cygwin'))
 
 requires_Compress_copy = unittest.skipUnless(
         hasattr(zlib.compressobj(), "copy"),

Misc/NEWS.d/next/Build/2025-02-19-00-00-00.gh-issue-91246.ahsgd3.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Make zlib required to build CPython with the exception of WASI.
+(Contributed by Stan Ulbrych in :gh:`xxxxxx`.)

configure.ac

@@ -5323,7 +5323,7 @@ if test "$ac_cv_have_lchflags" = yes ; then
 fi
 
 dnl Check for compression libraries
-AH_TEMPLATE([HAVE_ZLIB_COPY], [Define if the zlib library has inflateCopy])
+AH_TEMPLATE([HAVE_ZLIB_COPY], [Define if the zlib library has inflateCopy; zlib 1.2.0 (2003) added inflateCopy.])
 
 dnl detect zlib from Emscripten emport
 PY_CHECK_EMSCRIPTEN_PORT([ZLIB], [-sUSE_ZLIB])