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Managing Projects with GNU Make

Posted by michael on from the making-trouble dept.

sarumont writes "Every Open Source developer uses or has used GNU make at some point or another. Everyone who has ever compiled a piece of Open Source software has used GNU's make. So what exactly is GNU make and how does it work? The 3rd Edition of 'Managing Projects with GNU Make' tells you all about using GNU make and more."

3 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Quite the assumption by Umbral+Blot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As a Sourceforge admin (see my sig) I can testify from personal experience that Sourceforge has a heavy Linux bias. I do not think that this necessarily comes from the site, but who the site affiliates with, and the people who are drawn to it. First off is FreshMeat. FreshMeat is a great way to create interest in your project and attract developers, and yet windows only projects cannot use it. There is no good reason for this except an anti-windows bias. And secondly the majority of Sourceforge users are Linux users, which means that Linux projects attract more developers and users, which means in turn that their projects shoot up in popularity and name recognition much faster than a Windows project. And finally those Linux projects, being popular have an easy time finding someone to port to Windows, but a low key windows project has a hard time finding someone to port it to Linux since no one knows about it. Hence a kind of self-perpetuating process has arisen that downs out windows projects.

    --

    Philosophy.
  2. Re:Quite the assumption by Haeleth · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm pretty sure there are plenty of open source developers who have never touched GNU Make.
    Open source on windows, OMG it does exist!!!!
    Step out of your Linux bubble.

    What's Linux-centric about GNU make?

    I'm primarily a Windows user, and I used to use GNU make all the time. Until I realised I preferred omake.

  3. Re:SCons is much better than GNU Make by eraserewind · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Well, GNU Make is open-source, so you can extend it, if you want to.
    Well, you can extend it, but you more than likely won't be able to get your patch into the main version. The project is extremely conservative about any new functionality. If it's not in GNU make, you can't use your new functionality if you hope to distribute to more than yourself.

    It's almost the same as the situation with internet explorer. Until the program with the most market share improves, everyone who cares about working with the marjority of people is stuck with a deficient system.