1.3 Who should read this book
Revealing the mystery around the GNU Autotools is likely to raise the
interest of a wide audience of software developers, system
administrators and technical managers.
Software developers, especially those involved with free software
projects, will find it valuable to understand how to use these tools.
The GNU Autotools are enjoying growing popularity in the free software
community. Developers of in-house projects can reap the same benefits
by using these tools.
System administrators can benefit from a working knowledge of these
tools -- a common task for system administrators is to compile and
install packages which commonly use the GNU Autotools framework.
Occasionally, a feature test may produce a false result, leading to a
compilation error or a misbehaving program. Some hacking is usually
sufficient to get the package to compile, but knowing the correct way to
fix the problem can assist the package maintainer.
Finally, technical managers may find the discussion to be an insight
into the complex nature of software portability and the process of
building a large project.
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