I think what we should do, in a nutshell, is the following:

- Inform the users that they may need the pkg-config package (if they
want to use OpenEXR).

- In the absence of pkg-config, or if pkg-config fails to come up with
any useful information, make a reasonable attempt to determine the
OpenEXR version in another manner, and make a reasonable guess at the
additional compiler and linker flags required (if any).

- Make sure our configure script contains a test to verify that the
OpenEXR library can be linked using the chosen compiler and linker flags.


I also wonder whether we should make our handling of libraries more
consistent, and make use of pkg-config for other libraries as well where
possible.

As a side note, I noticed that the automake tools apparently provide
dedicated macros to make use of pkg-config; those might be worth a
closer look, even if in the end we decide against them (their use seems
to be controversial due to some known issues, so if we decide to use
them nonetheless, we should clearly document those issues).

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