Merge

[Richard Kimberly Heck]

I've merged 2.4.x into 2.4.1-devel. I should have been  doing this 
periodically but didn't. There were quite a few conflicts, 
unsurprisingly. I believe I have resolved them all properly, and I've 
spot-checked several commits. But you might want to have a look and make 
sure I didn't mess anything up.

Going forward, this should not be as much of an issue, since commits to 
2.4.x will be few. And hopefully, we won't need an emergency release, 
and I can merge 2.4.1-devel into 2.4.x before long.

Riki