Build Tools

GNOME software packages make use of the following build tools for portability and Makefile maintainance:

autoconf

Autoconf is a tool for producing shell scripts that automatically configure software source code packages to adapt to many kinds of UNIX-like systems. The configuration scripts produced by Autoconf are independent of Autoconf when they are run, so their users do not need to have Autoconf. (autoconf info page)

libtool

libtool is a portable interface to the process of creating shared libraries.

automake

Automake allows the creation of commonly used Makefiles via a macro language, and integrates with autoconf & libtool.

For more information on the build tools you can check out the Tools section of this site.