Automake 1.20 Brings New Features, Desires To Re-Establish GNU As Leading Build System

Out today is GNU Automake 1.20 with the new --enable-jobserver option and opting for GPLv3+ licensing. Automake up to this release had been GPLv2 licensed. Now Automake is under GPLv3 or later (GPLv3). This aligns with Autoconf and recommendations from the Free Software Foundation of using GPLv3+ licensing. The new --enable-jobserver option is for letting compilers and linkers inherit the GNU make's pipe job server like for GCC's -flto=jobserver mode for link-time optimizations. Automake 1.20 also adds a new "delete-on-error" option. Using this option will emit a .DELETE_ON_ERROR special target in the generated Makefile.in file to instruct GNU Make to delete the target when its recipe fails. Automake also adds a new print-distfiles target for listing the files that make dist would distribute. GNU Automake 1.20 also ships with a variety of bug fixes. Kamila Szewczyk wrote in the GNU Automake 1.20 release announcement the desire to re-establish the GNU build system as "the build system of choice" for new software projects. Considering the pace of CMake and Meson adoption these days, that will be a stretch goal. "Among new features is `--enable-jobserver' for compiler and linker access to GNU make's jobserver, the delete-on-error option, and a print-distfiles target. distcheck no longer requires TeX by default. This release also fixes some long-standing bugs and limitations concerning dependency tracking, lex/yacc output in VPATH builds, Vala builds, distribution compression, and uninstall checks. Furthermore, GNU automake has upgraded from the GNU GPLv2 (or later) license to the GNU GPL v3 (or later) license. I have substantial plans for the GNU Build System (`autotools') as a whole. I intend to continue resolving old issues and limitations, and adding new features in GNU Automake, slowly dragging it into the future. My ultimate goal is to establish it, once again, as the build system of choice for new software projects while continuing to simplify maintenance and portability for existing users. Hopefully, upcoming releases will get us closer and closer to this goal." Downloads and more details on today's Automake 1.20 release can be found via the GNU mailing list.