How Do Parallel Builds Scale?

[Bob Friesenhahn]

I suspect that this anaysis has been mentioned on the Automake list 
before but (if so) it is worth looking at again.  It seems that few 
packages benefit significantly from parallel builds.  Many packages 
use Automake, but they use it in a very inefficient way.  Here is a 
web page which shows the current pitiful state of parallel builds:

  http://hubble.gforge.inria.fr/parallel-builds.html

Given that even desktop and laptop computers support 4 CPU cores and 
that affordable server type hardware is available with as many as 64 
CPU cores, it is useful if the build process of packages is redone so 
that it benefits from compilation on modern hardware.

Bob
--
Bob Friesenhahn
address@hidden, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/