Bruno Haible <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi Simon, > >> Using the obstack module results in warnings: >> >> warning: module obstack depends on a module with an incompatible license: >> exit >> warning: module obstack depends on a module with an incompatible license: >> exitfail >> >> The reason appears to be because obstack is 'LGPL' while exit and >> exitfail is 'GPL'. > > Yes, this is so, unfortunately. > >> Would you agree to re-license this module to 'LGPL'? > > This is the wrong approach, IMO. If you are using 'obstack' in a library, > you don't _want_ it to call exit(). You need to change the 'obstack' module - > locally, via a local override - so that it can not call exit any more.
You don't need to go that far. obstack already provides a way. See below. > Paul Eggert and I wanted to do this long ago, but didn't find a _general_ > solution that would serve GPLed and LGPLed projects equally and yet be simple. > > Changing the licenses of 'exit' and 'exitfail' to LGPL would be the wrong > approach, because then people would ask for all gnulib to become LGPL, > piece by piece: first 'exit', then 'xmalloc', etc. etc. > >> Bruno, your 'exit' module looks strange: it doesn't do anything except >> depending on stdlib. It used to provide exit.h, but no longer does so. >> Can't we simply remove the 'exit' module and suggest users to use the >> stdlib module directly instead? > > We could in theory, but a few modules (copy-file, exitfail, pipe, xsetenv > etc.) > depend on it. I find it quite clear to say: "if you need the exit() function, > take the 'exit' module". Clearer than to say: "... take the 'stdlib' module". Technically, we can remove obstack's dependency on exit and exitfail altogether. Until recently, I didn't think that was sensible, but with a recent change to coreutils' src/remove.c, I discovered that there is a way to use an obstack without resorting to library-unfriendly exit calls. Sure, you've always been able to define obstack_chunk_alloc and obstack_chunk_free, but that interface merely displaced the problem. Bottom line, for a truly obstack-dependent and library-clean solution, you'd use obstack_specify_allocation_with_arg in place of obstack_init, providing a longjump target and an allocator function that longjumps to that target upon failure. See these for diffs: this one defines rm_malloc, which belongs in... http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=coreutils.git;a=commitdiff;h=24412edeaf5 this *preceding* change to use obstack_specify_allocation_with_arg: http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=coreutils.git;a=commitdiff;h=a5111af33ea
