On Wed, Jun 9, 2021 at 3:07 PM Matias N. <mat...@imap.cc> wrote: > I will leave up to PPMC to decide whether a call to a vote is > necessary/useful, but > to me the community response is now quite clear. Also, voting based on > majority > would not really consider that such a change actually requires significant > backing from the comunity. I will therefore will not continue working on this > (you can delete the branch).
Please don't delete the branch. Although switching build systems is a scary thought, I think we should be open-minded about trying it. As I suggested before, and I think two other people said something similar, perhaps the CMake can coexist with the current Make build system somehow, even if it's labeled "Experimental." Yes I know that creates more maintenance burden, and a few people said it doesn't make sense to manage multiple build systems, but other people pointed out that all downstream users will need to rework their out-of-tree boards/frameworks/etc to adopt CMake. That might make some people upset; but it will probably make some people happy too, and we (or at least I) don't know which group is bigger. In either case, with such a big change, I really think it can't just happen in one atomic commit. For example, think of the Python 2 -> Python 3 transition. That has been going on for how many years now?! This proposed change won't take that long to transition, but it will still need time. If we could have both build systems for a while, it would allow people to test the waters with CMake but fall back on Make if they hit problems and need to get their work done; it will likely get a lot of feedback and fixes; and eventually depending on how good it gets, we can deprecate Make and take CMake out of "experimental" status. This is a disadvantage for maintenance, but it will give downstream a transition period that will be needed for this kind of change. In any event, whatever you do, please DON'T delete that branch! It would be better to find a way to merge it back to master without destroying the existing Make system. That's just my two [insert 2/100 of your favorite currency here]. Nathan
