[gjvc]

I use make for (among other things) transforming files; batch compression being the simplest example, so all one requires is a rule saying %.log.xz : %.log and all is well.

But if people have colons in filenames, for example for timestamps, all bets are off, and make chokes spectacularly.

[lolcatnip]

And that really sucks in Windows because every absolute path contains a colon. Not that absolute paths are common in makefiles, but it's not something that should break on a major platform.