I would like to thank the Steering Committee for making this decision. I
realize it has been a contentious one.
On Tue, Jul 18, 2017 at 6:12 AM, Jon Kalb via Boost
The libraries produced by the Boost community have had a greater impact on the way that the C++ community writes code than any other library implementation. The focus of the Boost community will always be on the libraries, but it is undeniable that we are dependent on and often limited by the infrastructure of our trade. Years ago, the move to Git was contentious; yet, it was required to improve development. In a similar vein our build system has become an impediment for many developers and users, existing and prospective.
Jon has identified here my greatest concern with our use of bjam: that it represents a barrier to adoption of Boost. I'm often in the position of advocating for Boost, and I find it very difficult to explain to potential users why it has its own, fairly obscure (though arguably superior) build system instead of one of the ones commonly used in the industry. Worse, bjam compounds the reputation of Boost as accessible only to gurus. It saddens me to see that this decision has alienated some of our valuable contributors. I hope they will come to see that moving to a more familiar infrastructure will draw in new users and provide a needed jolt of momentum to the use of our libraries. In the meantime, I volunteer to help with the CMake conversion! Best Regards, Jeff