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

[Paul Smith]

On Mon, 2011-11-21 at 21:56 +0100, Stefano Lattarini wrote:
>   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).

If you go this route, then it's critical that the "minimal set" of
capabilities used by this new automake be clearly documented.  Even
something like "all features available as of GNU make 3.76" or whatever
would be very helpful, although I would prefer an explicit list of
capabilities.

There ARE multiple versions of GNU make out there and many distributions
still ship versions many years old... I regularly get questions on the
GNU make help lists from users referring to our web manual, which
obviously documents the latest released version of GNU make, and they
are confused because their version of GNU make (released in 2006 or
whatever) does not support some of the documented features.