Build using sources from a duplicate tree - makefile

Question

GNU Make 3.8.1
I am working on what is basically a plugin for a software product. The plugin is built in a subdirectory of the main product, so the directory structure looks something like:
product
product/src
product/plugin
product/plugin/myPlugin
where "myPlugin" is the name of the plugin I'm working on. What I would like to do, is be able to build myPlugin as well as another version of myPlugin, call it myPlugin-lite. This plugin would have the same sources as myPlugin, but use different flags and defines in the makefiles. The idea was to create a duplicate of the myPlugin tree structure, containing only myPlugin's makefiles, and have it build using the sources from myPlugin. So the directory structure would look like:
product
product/src
product/plugin
product/plugin/myPlugin
product/plugin/myPlugin-lite
myPlugin would build and create all its targets within its subdirectory, and myPlugin-lite would build and create all its targets within its subdirectory. I found a few solutions here: http://make.mad-scientist.net/papers/multi-architecture-builds/ and out of these options it seems like the symbolic links would be best, but it still doesn't feel like the "right" way to do this.
My question is, is this the best/simplest/most maintainable way to do this? If not what are the alternatives?

Answer 1

If the only thing you need from myPlugin is source files then this is exactly what VPATH and The vpath Directive are for.
4.5.1 VPATH: Search Path for All Prerequisites
The value of the make variable VPATH specifies a list of directories that make should search. Most often, the directories are expected to contain prerequisite files that are not in the current directory; however, make uses VPATH as a search list for both prerequisites and targets of rules.
Thus, if a file that is listed as a target or prerequisite does not exist in the current directory, make searches the directories listed in VPATH for a file with that name. If a file is found in one of them, that file may become the prerequisite (see below). Rules may then specify the names of files in the prerequisite list as if they all existed in the current directory. See Writing Recipes with Directory Search.
In the VPATH variable, directory names are separated by colons or blanks. The order in which directories are listed is the order followed by make in its search. (On MS-DOS and MS-Windows, semi-colons are used as separators of directory names in VPATH, since the colon can be used in the pathname itself, after the drive letter.)
For example,
VPATH = src:../headers
specifies a path containing two directories, src and ../headers, which make searches in that order.
With this value of VPATH, the following rule,
foo.o : foo.c
is interpreted as if it were written like this:
foo.o : src/foo.c
assuming the file foo.c does not exist in the current directory but is found in the directory src.
Also see How Not to Use VPATH from MadScientist for more discussion about what they aren't for. Though that's largely just a build-up for the multi-architecture-builds paper you already read.