> Does automake support building shared libraries without using libtool?
It's possible. The reason folks use libtool is that libtool knows about how to make shared libraries on *many* different systems, and it addresses the shared library version issues. For people who want to write code and let somebody else (libtool) deal with the shared library issues, it is usually much easier to let libtool deal with it. If you already have (and expect to be keeping) a group of folks who are ready to fight the "shared library battles" it may be worth letting them keep doing it, even under automake. There is suckage either way. Speaking as somebody who dislikes messing with the details of shared libraries on a bunch of platforms, and also as somebody who (from a place of ignorance) wonders why it takes so long to get new releases of libtool out, I would be Thrilled if the folks you know who want to do their own shared-library stuff under automake would instead work on making libtool even better so the rest of us can benefit from that effort as well. H
