Andreas Gruenbacher wrote: > > This variable will not be used if a user unpacks and compiles a virgin > > tarball. > > ... unless the timestamps get destroyed, or make gets things wrong. The > latter apparently happened to Daniel (CCed) on Tru64 with the native make; > the > result was a build failure. (GNU make got that situation right.)
OK, so that was the original problem. I agree it's a nasty one. One approach is described in the autoconf documentation <http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/html_node/Timestamps-and-Make.html> This approach looks reasonable. You are welcome to submit patch for gnulib to use this approach. Another approach is to document that your package requires GNU make for building. Nowadays, GNU make is preinstalled on many platforms and quickly built on the other platforms. Bruno
