[CMake] What does `cross-platform' mean?

[Jed Brown]

I find that CMake works well when there is only one version of installed
software, and shared libraries are used.  When there are multiple
ABI-incompatible versions of libraries or no shared libraries, many
modules are broken.  They will systematically find incompatible
libraries even with optimal hinting or claim to be successful but still
produce link errors.  Claiming to be successful, but failing at
link-time or runtime is the worst possible behavior.

Are such environments not a goal of CMake?

My previous messages to this list, describing many forms of brokenness
in such environments, have gotten few responses (thanks Alexander, Bill,
Csaba) while everyone weighs in on the bike shed.  If it's not a
priority, then CMake is little more than color Make with inferred
source-dependencies.  Sure, maybe everything Just Works on vanilla
Debian/Ubuntu/Redhat, but if it doesn't offer a better experience on
say, Cray XT5, than a plain Makefile, it's hard for me to sell users on
CMake.

</rant>

Jed
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