Re: Update FreeType's build systems (GSoC Project Idea #1)

[Werner LEMBERG]

> As Werner told, I was able to build freetype on MacOS, GNU/Linux,
> Windows.  What is the next step, I need to do?

Try to *understand* FreeType's Makefile structure and get acquainted
to it.  While the GSoC project is not very hard by itself, it is
probably hard to explain to non-FreeType-developers why an overhaul is
necessary in the long term...

Some suggestions.

* Read the files the `docs` directory and try, for example, to build a
  FreeType version that has only the most essential modules.

* Try the `make devel` build mode that completely bypasses the
  `configure` script by directly building a static library.

* Try also other projects of similar size to FreeType that come with a
  `./configure` file (I suggest that you primarily look at GNU
  projects since most of them have excellent autoconf support).
  Compare them with FreeType.

* Have also a look at projects that don't use `autoconf` but
  `automake`; in many cases this is leads to a much simpler structure.

* Look at ports from major distributions.  Check what they are doing
  with the configuration, how they patch FreeType, what they change
  during installation, etc.


    Werner