[moving to the automake list] Hi Richard.
First, let me thank for your intervention: I really appreciate you're taking a personal interest and partecipation in this thread (and in this automake issue in particular). On Monday 21 November 2011, Richard Stallman wrote: > > Stefano Lattarini wrote: > <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/automake/2011-01/msg00050.html> > > > Notice that, despite of the (semi)-consensus reached there, I'm becoming > > more and more convinced that, in the long run, requiring GNU make to run > > the automake-generated Makefiles would be an acceptable move (for automake > > 2.0, that is). But only because GNU make is *so* much better than > > portable make (which is extremely limited), because GNU make is very > > portable and easy to build and install (and free from bootstrapping > > problems AFAIK), and because the incompatibilities between different > > make versions are so appalling. > > Maybe you are right, but I am very cautious about such changes. > I think we should poll the users about it. > That might sound like a good idea, but IMHO polling the wider user base (i.e., those who are not GNU developers, nor subscribed to the automake lists) will turn out to be a tricky matter. Here is my tentative plan to act on the proposal: 1. We start requiring GNU make in an "experimental" automake 2.0 development line (which might, and will, break whathever backward-compatibility gets in its way). 2. Concurrently, we continue to support the more portable (and tested, and used-in-the-real-world) 1.x line, with bugfixes at least (and probably also with addition of new not-too-big features). 3. We publicize this move in the automake (1.x) web pages, documentation, etc, inviting users and developers to try out the new "automake 2.0 pre-alpha", and to send cricisims, suggestions, praise and ranting to the automake lists. 4. Time and user responses decide wether automake 2.0 will succeed or die out. WDYT? > Maybe in the discussion we should distinguish GNU-like systems > (perhaps including Mac OS) > Do you mean POSIX-like systems? > and totally dissimilar systems such as Windows, iOS and Android. > I agree this distinction would be a good idea. As an aside, note that automake-generated Makefiles already target only reasonably POSIX-ish environments; thus, for example, they don't work on Windows proper -- they require the presence of an emulation layer like Cygwin or MinGW/MSYS. Best regards, Stefano