Re: [bug #33034] "Makefile:23: *** mixed implicit and normal rules. Stop." for Linux kernel out of source builds

[tz]

I doubt there is much reason to expect public support.  Remember the response to my request:

"I really am not interested in changing all the error messages to give details
about which version of GNU make that error was introduced, and I'm also not
interested in adding flags to every version of GNU make which allows for
backward-compatibility with older versions.  That seems completely unwieldy
from a development and maintenance point of view."

Unfortunately, in the embedded world, not everything is updated constantly.  Even the desktop is not updated weekly.  ARM is still at Fedora 12, though 16 was just released.  I don't and won't have an updated kernel tree that works unless I find some way to recompile everything, and the huge, complex,  slow, and obscure autotools are often broken for cross compiling much beyond GCC itself and associated tools.  I doubt the entire tree in the FSF repository can be properly cross-compiled.  Debian has taken to arrays of the various processors so they can go native.

This was a corner case that probably shouldn't have worked, but it did, and a very large number of linux kernel versions require that behavior, so they can't be built with the current Make, and give no indication of anything that changed.  If it was some obscure package, I would agree.  If it was some long documented very specifically wrong usage that the kernel developers refused to fix as soon as it was reported I would also agree.

I wasn't asking to "change all the error messages" or for "flags for every version of GNU make", but only this one.  make --accept-bad-old-linux-makefiles or a SINGLE message for this case would suffice.  There are already dozens of options that subtly change the behavior or even ignored for compatibility and messages given when things are wrong in the makefile.  You won't eliminate those because they would break too many things or are useful for debugging the makefile. 

Perhaps a script could be written to modify the bad lines in the makefile automatically.  That would also fix things.

On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 9:39 AM, David Boyce <address@hidden> wrote:

Judging from the outpouring of support I received when I made the same
suggestion/offer :-( I'm unsurprised at seeing no public response to
yours either. But disappointed. I agree that this is a real problem
which does not seem to resonate with those not directly affected by
it.