gmake-proxy consists of a single BSDmakefile that can be dropped into any
project with an existing Makefile relying on syntax specific to GNU make.
Instead of seeing and endless wall of errors as bmake attempts (and fails) to
parse the gmake-specific contents, with this BSDmakefile in place make
will silently proxy all commands (and even attempt to forward commandline
options in a compatibile manner) to GNU make if gmake is found.
If gmake is not installed, this makefile will emit the appropriate error
message informing the end user that gmake is required to compile the project
in question.
Since the split from the original AT&T make, both GNU's make and the BSD
make have adopted different syntax to improve and expand the makefile syntax.
These syntaxes changes are largely incompatible with one another. While the BSD
makefile syntax is typically seen as being cleaner and clearer (and bmake can
handle paths with spaces), the GNU variant of the makefile syntax is by far the
more popular of the two in random open source projects found around the web.
Fortunately, both GNU make and BSD make default to a different makefile
name that, if present, will be used instead of a file named Makefile in the
project root. For BSD make, that filename is BSDmakefile, while for GNU
make, that name is is GNUmakefile.
This project consists of a single BSDmakefile that can be dropped into any
directory containing either a GNUmakefile or (as is most common) a
platform-agnostic Makefile that incorrectly contains GNU-specific
syntax/code. This BSDmakefile will attempt to intercept the user's build
command and forward it to a GNU make instance, relying on the presence of GNU
make installed under the name gmake.
gmake-proxy is written and developed by Mahmoud Al-Qudsi of NeoSmart
Technologies. This project is (aptly) released to the general public under the
terms of the two-clause BSD license (aka "the simplified BSD license" or "the
FreeBSD license"). Please see the LICENSE file for the full text of the
license.
(Code licensed under the BSD license may be freely used in GPL projects, unfortunately the converse is not true.)