Max is a makefile-generator. It is fed by a short input-file that describes the structure of a package. Based on this data, a set of makefiles and a configure-script are created. These offer: compilation on many platforms, at the same time; support for both C and C++ source files; support for shared library on most major systems; many clean/install/uninstall commands for make; an automatized `make depend'; coexistence with autoscan-output; output mostly compliant with GNU standards. The makefiles that are created by max need gmake to work. Max is used in places where imake or automake could be used otherwise. However, max is more flexible than imake, and easier to use than automake. I hope that max is a good choice for those who don't want to spend much time worrying about makefiles, but still want all the comfort that many great freeware packages provide.