PROPOSAL: Use Cmake as the build system for Samba

[Matthieu Patou]

Hi Simo,

I heard more than once that Jelmer was (re)working on a build system for 
samba.

Did anyone has more clues on what's going on ?  How much will it share 
with the current build system ?

Matthieu.


On 17/02/2010 22:39, simo wrote:
> To all people involved in samba development,
>
> as the subject shows I am writing this mail to propose a change in our
> building system.
>
> == Why ? ==
>
> During the years we tried a few times to get a better build system,
> mainly for the Samba 4 effort, but since the Franky project this
> involves also the Samba 3 code base. This effort has been commendable
> but many recognize that what we have now is far from ideal.
>
> The current system seem way to complex (it requires knowledge of 3/4
> different languages strangely intertwined) to be easily understood and
> is basically almost completely undocumented. And most of it is obscure
> to most developers and only a few key ones have enough knowledge of the
> system to resolve any non-trivial problem. This causes issues not only
> within the development team but is also perceived as an issue by anyone
> that has to work with it. Distribution maintainers, for example, have a
> hard time grokking it and can't easily touch if they have some problem
> to solve.
>
> == What ? ==
>
> I have been working with Andreas and Günther on investigating the use of
> Cmake within Samba. Cmake seem to be powerful enough to address the
> needs that initially caused us to build this homegrown system.
>
> Andreas created a page that explains all the advantages using Cmake
> could bring us: http://wiki.samba.org/index.php/CMake
>
> Andreas also converted a few basic components to Cmake to show how this
> conversion will work.
>
> One of the most interesting things about Cmake, is that for the initial
> steps it can be developed in a completely parallel way to the current
> build system, so that the transition should not cause extended building
> problems while it is carried over.
>
> Andreas is very well versed in Cmake, he even contributes to the
> upstream community, and he would like to volunteer driving the initial
> adoption and helping any developer that wants to get involved get up to
> speed with it.
>