On Sat, Jun 25, 2022 at 12:48 PM Paul Smith <psm...@gnu.org> wrote: > I'm trying to decide what the future is for GNU make's "build.sh" > bootstrapping script. As you may recall, this script is provided to > allow GNU make to build on systems which don't already have an instance > of make installed. Its goal is to build the first make binary, without > of course all the fancy parts of avoiding rebuilds, generating > dependency files, etc. >
Can anyone contribute information about actual cases where build.sh was used? I've been using GNU make since 1992 or so, on only 9 or so different UNIX platforms, but they all had _some_ form of make available, however crippled, that was sufficient to bootstrap GNU make. So, I've avoided being its target audience. Who has been and can they speak to what they would do without it? "I have a native compiler, but not make" is kinda a weird place to be; those bootstrapping a new OS typically cross-compile the entire toolchain until they can self-host: make is just another small divot in that bumpy road and using build.sh when they still have to cross-compile the rest of the toolchain doesn't actually help. This leaves me with two options: > > 1. Stop using gnulib, or at least sharply limit the modules we will > include to those with trivial-enough configurations. > 2. Abandon the build.sh script and require an existing make program > in order to build a new version of GNU make. Lacking a description of a case in the past where build.sh was actually the only sane option, I would go with #2. Philip Guenther
