Re: [CRAZY PROPOSAL] Automake should support only GNU make

[Stefano Lattarini]

On Thursday 13 January 2011, Юрий Пухальский wrote:
> Good day.
> 
> I'll throw my humble userish $0.02 in here.
> 
> First of all, i like the idea of autotools working in any POSIX
> enviroment, requiring a set of tools that is everywhere by definition.
> Because when for example i try to compile my project in hostile
> environment with suspicious admins that watch every my step -
> requiring GNU make would be a hindrance. There are very many
> seriously old systems out there, at least here, in poor Russia.
>
OK, so you're telling me that asking to install just GNU make is
perceived by some admins as an unreasonable, suspicious request.
I'd never guessed by myself that this could be the case, really.
That's bad news for me, but I'm glad that I'm now aware of it at
least.

> Also, if we step away from requiring only a standard set of tools,
> that makes a precedent. Next step would easily be to require bash
> (which, by the way, i believe to be much more ubiquitous that
> gnu/bsd-make). That will surely clarify the utilities' code, if we
> drop the support of them old shells. So the same reasoning will apply
> to this also. So the trend, i'm afraid, will be like this - stick to
> GNU software. I have nothing against it, but that is a thing to
> consider - a balance between developers' lazyness and users' comfort.
> (I already don't like that the autotools' set requires gnu M4).
> 

Thanks for your contribution.  It's always useful to hear the
opinions and experiences of a real user.

Regards,
  Stefano