When Should I Use GNU Autotools?
• If you are using a compiled language, like C or C++, you may want to use GNU Autotools to help build your application for the target platform (read on to see if any further criteria fit your situation). Interpreted languages like Perl or Python don’t really fit this requirement. • If you cannot predict the environment (operating system and/or hardware platform) that your target audience will be using, you may wish to consider using GNU Autotools, as doing so will help your product become less platform-dependent. This may be true regardless of how you distribute your software. For example, you may distribute binary RPMs, but if your application needs to run on a variety of environments, you may still want to use GNU Autotools so that someone can do a targeted build of the RPM for a specific environment. Examples of developers in this situation might include: • Maintainers of open source software projects that may need to be compiled on any number of operating systems or hardware archi
