Apply suggestions from Petr

Co-authored-by: Petr Viktorin <[email protected]>

Author: StanFromIreland

Doc/whatsnew/3.14.rst

@@ -1314,7 +1314,7 @@ Build changes
   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:`130297`.)
+  (Contributed by Stan Ulbrych and Gregory P. Smith in :gh:`91246`.)
 
 .. _whatsnew314-pep761:
 

configure.ac

@@ -5350,9 +5350,12 @@ AS_CASE([$ac_sys_system],
   ],
   [*], [
     if test "$have_zlib" != "yes"; then
-      AC_MSG_ERROR([m4_normalize([
-        zlib.h and libz are required. Install your OS's zlib-devel or
-        zlib1g-dev equivalent library or get it from https://zlib.net/.
+      AC_MSG_WARN([m4_normalize([
+        zlib (zlib.h and libz) was not found. Building CPython
+        without zlib is not supported, although it might work
+        for limited use cases.
+        Install your OS's zlib-devel or zlib1g-dev equivalent
+        library or get it from https://zlib.net/.
       ])])
     fi
     BINASCII_CFLAGS="$ZLIB_CFLAGS"