[blacklion]

I wonder, why GNU make is much more popular than BSD make/pmake.

Both are extensions to classic make (makefiles without advanced features works with both implementations), but, to my eye, pmake extensions is much more simpler and nicer to use, than GNU make extensions.

Simple ".if/.else/.endif" and true ".for" loop, like in sh is much more comprehensible than GNU make functional extensions to me.

Is it only me?

And BSD systems have extensive library for pmake already, which allows to build programs, libraries (both shared and static) and more in declarative way, without any custom rules. It is like these extensions, but battle-tested for 20+ years. With nice license, too.