1 This file (NEWS-2.0) lists several incompatibilities that may happen in a
2 future Automake 2.0 release.
4 However, the (few) current Automake maintainers have insufficient interest
5 and energy to pursue the 2.0 release. We have not even reviewed all
6 existing bugs. New maintainers and developers are needed! For more
7 information about helping with Automake development:
8 https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/automake/2021-03/msg00018.html
10 Therefore, there is no ETA for Automake 2.0, and it is not likely to be
11 any time soon. So moving these future issues to a separate file seemed
12 warranted. For more info, see the ./PLANS/ directory.
15 * WARNING: Future backward-incompatibilities!
17 - Makefile recipes generated by Automake 2.0 will expect to use an
18 'rm' program that doesn't complain when called without any non-option
19 argument if the '-f' option is given (so that commands like "rm -f"
20 and "rm -rf" will act as a no-op, instead of raising usage errors).
21 This behavior of 'rm' is very widespread in the wild, and it will be
22 required in the next POSIX version:
24 <http://austingroupbugs.net/view.php?id=542>
26 Accordingly, AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE now expands some shell code that checks
27 that the default 'rm' program in PATH satisfies this requirement,
28 aborting the configure process if this is not the case. For the
29 moment, it's still possible to force the configuration process to
30 succeed even with a broken 'rm', but that will no longer be the case
33 - Automake 2.0 will require Autoconf 2.71 or later. Exact
34 dependencies are unknowable at ths time.
36 - Automake 2.0 will drop support for the long-deprecated 'configure.in'
37 name for the Autoconf input file. You are advised to start using the
38 recommended name 'configure.ac' instead, ASAP.
40 - The ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS special make variable will be fully deprecated in
41 Automake 2.0: it will raise warnings in the "obsolete" category (but
42 still no hard error of course, for compatibilities with the many, many
43 packages that still relies on that variable). You are advised to
44 start relying on the new Automake support for AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS
45 instead (which was introduced in Automake 1.13).
47 - Automake 2.0 will remove support for automatic dependency tracking
48 with the SGI C/C++ compilers on IRIX. The SGI depmode has been
49 reported broken "in the wild" already, and we don't think investing
50 time in debugging and fixing is worthwhile, especially considering
51 that SGI has last updated those compilers in 2006, and retired
52 support for them in December 2013:
53 <http://www.sgi.com/services/support/irix_mips_support.html>
55 - Automake 2.0 will remove support for MS-DOS and Windows 95/98/ME
56 (support for them was offered by relying on the DJGPP project).
57 Note however that both Cygwin and MSYS/MinGW on modern Windows
58 versions will continue to be fully supported.
60 - Automake-provided scripts and makefile recipes might (finally!)
61 start assuming a POSIX shell in Automake 2.0. There still is no
62 certainty about this though: we'd first like to wait and see
63 whether future Autoconf versions will be enhanced to guarantee
64 that such a shell is always found and provided by the checks in
67 In 2020, config.guess was changed by its then-maintainer to require
68 $(...); the ensuing bug reports and maintenance hassle
69 (unfortunately the changes have not been reverted) are a convincing
70 argument that we should not require a POSIX shell until Solaris 10,
71 at least, is completely gone from the world.
73 - Starting from Automake 2.0, third-party m4 files located in the
74 system-wide aclocal directory, as well as in any directory listed
75 in the ACLOCAL_PATH environment variable, will take precedence
76 over "built-in" Automake macros. For example (assuming Automake
77 is installed in the /usr/local hierarchy), a definition of the
78 AM_PROG_VALAC macro found in '/usr/local/share/aclocal/my-vala.m4'
79 should take precedence over the same-named automake-provided macro
80 (defined in '/usr/local/share/aclocal-2.0/vala.m4').
84 Copyright (C) 1995\(en2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
86 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
87 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
88 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
91 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
92 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
93 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
94 GNU General Public License for more details.
96 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
97 along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.