BUILD: bump version to v1.8

[Sergei-Lebedev]

What

Bump version to v1.8

[greptile-apps]

Greptile Summary

This PR bumps the UCC minor version from v1.7 to v1.8 by updating ucc_ver_minor in configure.ac. The change is minimal and consistent with the established pattern for version bumps in this repository (e.g., v1.4 → v1.5 → v1.7 → v1.8).

• The single-line change in configure.ac is correct and sufficient — all downstream version consumers (src/ucc/api/ucc_version.h.in, src/core/ucc_version.c.in, cmake/ucc-config-version.cmake.in) use autoconf/cmake substitution placeholders (@MINOR_VERSION@, @VERSION@) and will pick up the new value automatically at build time.
• No other files require manual version updates.

Confidence Score: 5/5

• This PR is safe to merge — it is a minimal, well-scoped version bump with no logic changes.
• The change is a single-line version number increment in configure.ac, consistent with all prior version bump commits in the repository. There are no logic, API, or behavioral changes, and the downstream version template files automatically inherit the new value through build-system substitution.
• No files require special attention.

Important Files Changed

Filename	Overview
configure.ac	Single-line change bumping ucc_ver_minor from 7 to 8, consistent with previous version bump PRs in this repository. All version template files (ucc_version.h.in, ucc_version.c.in, ucc-config-version.cmake.in) use @MINOR_VERSION@/@VERSION@ substitution placeholders and will automatically pick up the new version at build time.

_{Last reviewed commit: 7fcda59}

[ragnar-howler]

LGTM. Simple version bump from 1.7 to 1.8 in configure.ac. Change is minimal and follows the existing versioning pattern. Approving for merge.