>In article <20030906065210.5AA1DB004@cvs.netbsd.org>,
>Simon J. Gerraty <sjg@netbsd.org> wrote:

>>Make empty() consider an undefined variable as empty,
>>rather than throw a syntax error.

>I had considered doing this many times, but it needs to be coordinated
>with the other BSD's, otherwise we'll end up with makefiles that run
>only in our version of make.

I'm all for cross pollination, but to a large extent we have that issue
today.  Our makefiles are full of cool stuff like :@ :U etc which
the other BSD makes lack (or worse have a different meaning for).  
I spent some cycles a few years ago trying to remedy that and came 
to the conclusion it simply wasn't going to happen.

We've added other features since then too.  
It's way cool to be able to do stuff like:

	@cat ${.ALLSRC} | egrep -v '${LIST:ts|}' > $@

if we can agree with other BSDs as to names for new features - great.
But if we can't even agree that the feature is useful...

Obviously that's not the case here but in anycase we have diverged to
a large extent already.

--sjg