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

[Paolo Bonzini]

On 11/22/2011 04:35 PM, Stefano Lattarini wrote:
>   1. "Automake 2" turns out to be a failure, it gets abandoned, and
>      "Automake 1" becomes again the center of all our developement
>      efforts.  No problem for you, since you're still using this older
>      automake.
>
>   2. "Automake 2" is a success, and we drop support for Automake 1.  At
>      this point, it shouldn't be too big a pain for you to convert to the
>      new automake (a good documentation about incompatibilities between,
>      and/or transition from, automake 1 and 2 should exist at this point).
>      Also, assuming that many other packages are using automake 2 by now,
>      and thus requiring GNU make, it should be much more acceptable for
>      the NTP build system to do the same.

A half transition happens, which turns out to be a nightmare until 
Automake 2 adoption actually becomes common.  This is exactly what 
happen between Automake 1.5 and Automake 1.8, each of which introduced 
many backwards-incompatible features, and between Autoconf 2.50 and 
"some time later".

Paolo