[bug-inetutils] Re: inetutils-1.8 released

[Adam Sampson]

On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 04:54:01PM -0400, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
> Automake shouldn't error out on valid make constructs; doesn't matter
> if they are GNU make specific--which ifdef isn't--or if they are not.

ifdef might not be GNU-make-specific, but it's not safe to use in
portable Makefiles.  Conditionals aren't in the SUS spec; Solaris make
and smake don't have them, and BSD make and SGI pmake use different
syntaxes.

> A Makefile.am is nothing more than a Makefile, with some macros.

Sure, but the "macros" are pretty subtle, and already overlap with the
GNU make syntax in ways that aren't quite compatible because they have
to be done at automake time -- e.g. rewriting += into plain assignment,
and expanding include directives.  I can understand why the automake
authors might think that blowing up rather than giving a warning might
be a safer option!

The patch looks good to me -- thanks very much,

-- 
Adam Sampson <address@hidden>                         <http://offog.org/>