The make tool is a tool to make software development easier. It gives the developer the possibility to define targets, with additional commands for compilation.

Unfortunately, suffered the same fate as many other Unix tools. Most Unix vendors have incompatible versions of make: a GMake Makefile is not guaranteed to work with the Solaris version of make.

There have been a few initiatives to make make easier and more generic. The most succesful tools are IMake and AutoMake^?.