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

[Stefano Lattarini]

On Tuesday 22 November 2011, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> On 11/22/2011 04:35 PM, Stefano Lattarini wrote:
> >   1. "Automake 2" turns out to be a failure, it gets abandoned, and
> >      "Automake 1" becomes again the center of all our developement
> >      efforts.  No problem for you, since you're still using this older
> >      automake.
> >
> >   2. "Automake 2" is a success, and we drop support for Automake 1.  At
> >      this point, it shouldn't be too big a pain for you to convert to the
> >      new automake (a good documentation about incompatibilities between,
> >      and/or transition from, automake 1 and 2 should exist at this point).
> >      Also, assuming that many other packages are using automake 2 by now,
> >      and thus requiring GNU make, it should be much more acceptable for
> >      the NTP build system to do the same.
> 
> A half transition happens, which turns out to be a nightmare until 
> Automake 2 adoption actually becomes common.  This is exactly what 
> happen between Automake 1.5 and Automake 1.8, each of which introduced 
> many backwards-incompatible features, and between Autoconf 2.50 and 
> "some time later".
> 
Hmm, good point... maybe the safest way to prevent this is to make it
clear that this would be a *new project*, that while inspired to automake
and sprouting from its codebase, has different goals and assumptions and
APIs?  In particular, a new name might be warranted...  What about
"AutoMire"?  It's not already taken (just make a web search), it gives
some due credit to Quagmire (from which I'd like to steal as much as
I can :-), and will allow us to retain the `AM_' namespace.

Regards,
  Stefano