One file in several modules?

[Keith Hearn]

The project for which I'm the release engineer has code broken into several
CVS modules, based on functionality. This works fine, but there is one
difficulty. Each module contains a Makefile.include file which contains
various rule & variable definitions that are used by most of the other
Makefiles. 

We want to keep each module self-contained so you can just check it out and
work on it without having to check out other modules as well. But I also
want to keep the Makefile.include files in synch. 

Currently, we have a separate copy in each module, and if I want to make a
change I have to make the change in every copy (in 25+ modules). Needless to
say, this is more work than I'd like for it to be.

Is there any way to have one file be in several modules? Or is there a
better way to handle this issue?

  Thanks for any help you can give,

    Keith Hearn