Minor Description
It's hard to diagnose build issues or figure out special compiler flags if the actual compiler commands are not displayed during the build process. All one gets is
(C++) Base64.o
not the actual g++ command. All the internal calls to make pass a -s flag. Would be better to have this be controlled at the level of ./configure. In addiition, other standard (autoconf/automake) flags (the MAKEFLAGS env var) to make appear not to be propagated. This could all be solved in a unified way:
1. configure.in sets MAKEFLAGS=-s iff MAKEFLAGS is not already set. That way user can use the same standard variable that works on all other autotooled projects, but if the user does not have any special requests, the existing behavior is used.
2. Have the various Makefile.in* call "${MAKE} ${MAKEFLAGS}" instead of "${MAKE} -s".