Re: [gnu-prog-discuss] Could automake-generated Makefiles required GNU make?

[Ralf Corsepius]

On 11/22/2011 04:50 PM, Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
> On Tue, 22 Nov 2011, Stefano Lattarini wrote:
> > >
> > Which IMHO would be a "killer benefit" :-)
> >
> > But now that I think about it, a GNU make-based rewrite might also offer
> > better extensibility (if we get the APIs right, that is), and that would
> > be a *great* improvement over the current situation, and one which would
> > benefit the whole user base (not only the maintainers).
>
> Only Automake maintainers (a diminishingly-small percentage of the total
> user base) care about how easy it is to maintain Automake. The users
> care about how easy and reliable it is to build the software.
>
> It would be useful to enumerate the user-visible benefits if Automake
> can depend on using GNU make.
It's hard for me to imagine any, because keeping Makefile.am's free of 
any proprietary make constructs (comprising gmake's) had been automake's 
job.

That said, apart from the fact that each generation of automake 
maintainers at one point in his automake-carriere comes up with "switch 
to gmake", my feel is automake must not use gmake because (in theory) 
there should not be any to use gmake.

> Another question is if GNU make is really good enough to warrant this
> sort of change.
Good point - gmake has a long history of "hickups" :-)

Ralf