[Automake-ng] Activating support for silent-rules unconditionally?

[Stefano Lattarini]

Right now, in mainstream Automake, support for silent rules is optional
and activated only if the 'silent-rules' option is specified.

I think the rationale behind this is the that the silent-rules machinery
originally [1] only worked with make implementations supporteing nested
variables expansions, which wasn't a POSIX-specified features, so that
packages wanting to be "extra-portable" couldn't use the silent-rules
support.

But since Automake-NG only targets GNU make, and since silent rules are
disabled by default even when the 'silent-rules' option is given [2], I
think it would now be simpler to have support for silent rules always
enabled [3].

WDYT?

Regards,
  Stefano

-*- Notes -*-

[1] At least, until this patch by Paul Eggert:
    <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/automake-patches/2011-12/msg00151.html>
    Motivate by automake bugs #9928 and #10237.

[2] Unless the developer makes them enabled by default be calling
    "AM_SILENT_RULES([yes])" in configure.ac.

[3] The 'silent-rules' option will thus become a no-op, but it might be kept
    for backward-compatibility for a while anyway if you feel that would be
    warranted.