V3 [PATCH 5/5] gnulib: Support variables from the top level Makefile

[Joseph Myers]

On Sat, 19 Dec 2020, H.J. Lu via Gcc-patches wrote:

> Work around what appears to be a GNU make bug handling MAKEFLAGS
> values defined in terms of make variables, as is the case for CC and
> friends when we are called from the top level Makefile.

This description, and the comment in Makefile.am repeating it, is rather 
unhelpful as it provides no way for a reader to know what the supposed bug 
is.  Reviewers need to be able to work out whether the proposed workaround 
is correct or the right approach for working around the bug.  Maintainers 
in future need to be able to tell what the bug is.  So the comment needs 
to explain what the bug is and give a reference to a report for the bug in 
the GNU make bug tracker, so that subsequent maintainers can look at that 
bug to tell if the workaround is still needed at all.

-- 
Joseph S. Myers
joseph@codesourcery.com