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

[Bruno Haible]

Richard Stallman wrote:
> one GNU package could drop support for ordinary Make, and see
> how users react.  If the level of complaint is not too high, then
> another GNU package could do this.  Once many GNU packages have done
> this, we might conclude it is ok for all GNU packages to do so
> (perhaps with a few exceptions).

Joseph Myers already mentioned GCC.

GNU coreutils require GNU make at least on AIX and OSF/1 [1][2].
The need for GNU make is now documented.

CLN (not a GNU package) needs GNU make and documents this requirement
very prominently in the installation instructions. As far as I can remember,
no single user has every complained about it.

When I needed to install GNU make on platforms such as AIX and OSF/1,
it was done in 5 minutes, because the released tarball has no external
dependencies and was well tested.

Bruno

[1] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-coreutils/2007-02/msg00241.html
[2] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/coreutils/2011-09/msg00122.html
-- 
In memoriam Gavriel Holtzberg <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavriel_Holtzberg>