Wireshark · Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] OSX build fails

[Roland Knall <rknall@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Nov 22, 2017 at 11:45 AM, João Valverde <joao.valverde@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 22-11-2017 08:37, Roland Knall wrote:

Might be a stupid question but on my account, only Linux machines are now capable of building Wireshark out of the box with autotools on default, right?

I'm not sure what you mean by "on default", but it seems unlikely that anyone could build Wireshark without having to install at least one dependency.

BSDs usually supply a gmake command for GNU Make. Not sure if it is installed by default.

Installing a dependency is  one thing, and fine by me. This includes installing a newer version of make. But for certain builders, that might not be an option (older Linux systems) as no packages might exist, and they will have to build from source. In those cases, building the make-system from source, just to use autotools is too much to ask for in my book. All those people have already an alternative in place though with cmake, but still, autotools sets the bar a little higher then cmake, and that is in my opinion not a good idea if both systems should be equal by design. So if they should be equal, that would also require the same prerequisites, or at least the same level of obtainability. 

But again, not going so far as to suggest removal, was just wondering the general issue.

cheers