Agreed if you're looking at it through the lens of portable software that you plan to distribute. Automake generates portable Makefiles for a reason.
But there's another huge category: people who are automating something that's not open-source. Maybe it stays within the walls of their company, where it's totally fine to say "build machines will always be Ubuntu" or whatever other environment their company prefers.
GNU Make has a ton of powerful features, and it makes sense to take advantage of them if you know that GNU Make will always be the one you use.
But there's another huge category: people who are automating something that's not open-source. Maybe it stays within the walls of their company, where it's totally fine to say "build machines will always be Ubuntu" or whatever other environment their company prefers.
GNU Make has a ton of powerful features, and it makes sense to take advantage of them if you know that GNU Make will always be the one you use.