[GRASS5] Gmake is not Gnu Make

[Glynn Clements]

Thierry Laronde wrote:

> Shouldn't we advertize the fact that Gmake and Gmakefiles stand for
> _G_rass makefiles and that these makefiles are POSIX compatible i.e. use
> only few features that let them be scanned by GNUmake or Pmake (BSD)?
> 
> The FreeBSD package for example has:
> 
> USE_GMAKE=      yes
> 
> The fact is that, _now_, the name is misleading.
> 
> What are the plans for the future? Keep this compatibility (I'm
> personnally against automake and the hell) or use more elaborate (why?)
> features that will not be portable?

5.7 doesn't use gmake5 or Gmakefiles. It just uses GNU Makefiles.

For a sane build system, we realistically need to insist upon a make
which:

1. Uses a Bourne shell for executing the commands.

2. Provides an "include" feature.

3. Provides an adequate syntax for pattern rules.

We should make a reasonable attempt to support any make program which
meets the above requirements. Over-engineering the build system in
order to support every make program in existence (which is basically
the case for gmake5) isn't worth it. OTOH, we shouldn't insist upon
GNU make just because we don't want to bother with relatively minor
compatibility issues.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn.clements at virgin.net>