GNU make 3.77 was a bad release. It contains a bug that
completely kills our local build system. (I've included a
copy of the bug report I sent to the GNU make maintainers at
the end of this message.) From searching bugzilla, I see
that there is at least one other serious bug in 3.77. It was
reported in bug #2074.

GNU Make 3.78.1 has been released. It seems to be better;
the bug I reported is fixed, at least. Since Redhat has been
shipping a broken make for two releases now (6.0 and 6.1),
it really needs to be fixed.

--Jim Amundson
  amundson


Here is a copy of the bug report I submitted to the GNU make
maintainers on July 2, 1999:

Hello,

I would like to report a bug in GNU Make 3.77. If one "-include"s a
file that does not exist once, make ignores the command and continues.
If the same file is "-included" a second time, make stops with "No
rule to make target". This behavior was not present in GNU make
3.76.1.

Here is a short example:

----GNUmakefile.single-------
-include never_there
all: ; @echo "Success"
-----------------------------

----GNUmakefile.double-------
-include never_there
-include never_there
all: ; @echo "Success"
-----------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------
> gmake --version
GNU Make version 3.76.1, by Richard Stallman and Roland McGrath.
Copyright (C) 1988, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97
        Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.
There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Report bugs to <bug-gnu-utils.mit.edu>.

> gmake377 --version
GNU Make version 3.77, by Richard Stallman and Roland McGrath.
Copyright (C) 1988, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98
        Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.
There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Report bugs to <bug-make>.

> gmake -f GNUmakefile.single
Success
> gmake -f GNUmakefile.double
Success
> gmake377 -f GNUmakefile.single
Success
> gmake377 -f GNUmakefile.double
gmake377: *** No rule to make target `never_there'.  Stop.

------------------------------------------------------------------

I am using Linux with the 2.2.9 kernel and glibc 2.0.7. I have
attached my config.h from the make build.

Thank you,
Jim Amundson

(config.h file omitted for brevity)