This is a branch of Mapnik to use standard GNU autotools to build.

When you get from git, first run :
./bootstrap 

Then :
./configure

then make

plans are:

1.  to enable a full static running , to work on generating c++ code from the templates, then to compile that code again to eliminate 
unneeded evaluation code. 

It should work like this :

file :
     class for some rule 
     class for some condition
     
2. to make the compile time fast, to use precompiled headers.

Mapnik is an OpenSource C++/Python toolkit for developing 
GIS (Geographic Information Systems) applications. At the core is a C++ shared 
library providing algorithms/patterns for spatial data access and visualization.

Essentially a collection of geographic objects (map, layer, datasource, feature, geometry), 
the library doesn't rely on "windowing systems" and can be deployed in any server environment. 
It is intended to play fair in a multi-threaded environment and is aimed primarily, 
but not exclusively, at web-based development.

High-level Python bindings (boost.python) facilitate rapid application development, 
targeting zope3, django etc.

Mapnik is a free software and is released under LGPL (GNU Lesser General Public Licence) (see COPYING)

For further information see:
  - http://mapnik.org
  - http://trac.mapnik.org
  - http://ohloh.net/p/mapnik