Shining Some Light on the Mozilla Build System

Talk Details

• Date: Sept 20, 2007
• Speaker: Ted Mielczarek, Mozilla Corporation

Notes

• Ted Mielczarek - ted@mielczarek.org
  • Build system peer, Breakpad stuff, etc
• Building software
• It's all about scope
  • Three major platforms supported, multiple other platforms usable
  • Multiple products in CVS
  • Thousands of Makefiles
• Managing the chaos
  • Tinderbox
  • LXR
• Basic build tools
  • autoconf - managing differences between platforms and selecting build options
  • GNU Make - following rules to build things based on changed files
• Your build experiences
• Cross-platform builds -- what's different on different platforms?
  • VMs to the rescue
• Deconstructing mozconfig
  • Sorting through configure.in
• What the heck is client.mk for?
  • Fancy things you can do
• Looking at some Makefiles
  • Plumbing the depths of rules.mk
  • Use the docs!
  • The Build Glossary
• The future of the build system
  • Buildbot
  • Giving the build system a facelift
• Breakpad and Crash Reporting