> I don't think build systems add -fPIC automatically, nor remove it automatically.
GNU Autotools do, if you tell, that you have a shared library. You can also switch between static/dynamic linking at build time and if you also use GNU Libtool, it will figure out the flags of your build platform at build time.
> as opposed to doing it yourself like make forces you to
You can definitely don't have to do that. GNU Automake does it by default, but if you are using plain Make, you can also use makedepend or the appropriate flags of your compiler.
> either bad ones, like make
What is wrong/missing with make as a task graph executor?
GNU Autotools do, if you tell, that you have a shared library. You can also switch between static/dynamic linking at build time and if you also use GNU Libtool, it will figure out the flags of your build platform at build time.
> as opposed to doing it yourself like make forces you to
You can definitely don't have to do that. GNU Automake does it by default, but if you are using plain Make, you can also use makedepend or the appropriate flags of your compiler.
> either bad ones, like make
What is wrong/missing with make as a task graph executor?
> or good ones, like Bazel
What can Bazel do better?