PROPOSAL: Use Cmake as the build system for Samba

[Jelmer Vernooij]

On Thu, 2010-02-18 at 19:40 -0500, simo wrote: 
> On Fri, 2010-02-19 at 01:23 +0100, Jelmer Vernooij wrote:
> > On Thu, 2010-02-18 at 17:38 -0500, simo wrote:
> 
> > > Finally we do not have anyone with experience on waf, so I am not sure
> > > who could do the job of porting the current build system over there.
> > I don't think the fact that we happen to have one person around who is
> > familiar with CMake right now and nobody who is (yet) familiar with one
> > of the other build systems is a good reason to go with CMake blindly.
> Nobody said anything about blindly, let's not get emotional.
> I was just stating the fact that we have a potential resource with one
> system and zero with the other, at the moment, nothing more, nothing
> less.

The reason I used the word "blindly" there is because you wrote that you
don't know scons or waf but you still dismiss them based on some
speculation about their viability and performance:

> I am not so sure about this waf, which nobody here knows for real.
> I have no idea how good it is or if it can do what it claims, I notice
> that it is derived from sCons and that people have migrated away from
> sCons to CMake, so this doesn't sound too good to me. Although maybe
> waf
> has solved all the problems sCons had. I don't know, and I don't have
> immediate access to a waf expert to find out.

> But what I don't like, is exactly the idea that we copy it in and
> forget. To me it looks like simply exchanging one problem for another.
> I fear we would start forking it and turning very soon back into the
> nightmare of having to maintain a build system ourselves. Again.
> 
> Also. It doesn't have a big community so it is a risk to go that
> route.

Just to clarify my position: I don't like CMake, but I can agree that
what we have now is even worse in most regards. If you can come up with
a branch that converts the current stuff to CMake and doesn't make our
lives harder, I'm happy to see it land. 

I haven't seen any convincing arguments that CMake is a better choice
than waf, scons or whatever other build tools there might be out there.
But then again, I'm not the one doing the work and I agree with Jeremy
that it's really up to those who do.

Cheers,

Jelmer 
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