Hello Bruno, Richard, all, * Bruno Haible wrote on Wed, Nov 05, 2008 at 02:03:06AM CET: > Richard W.M. Jones wrote: > > > The request brings up the issue of what the limits of what can be in > > gnulib. I'm not sure it is a useful discussion... > > My opinion: If it's "common" in the sense that more than one GNU package > is likely to use the code, it's welcome in gnulib. And if it's a collection > of small codes, rather than a big atomic chunk of code, it also technically > makes sense to have it in gnulib.
However, if it has a stable API, and well-defined semantics, you might as well spare every gnulib cloner the needed disk space and make XDR a stand-alone library, since we just heard again that a stable gnulib API is not anywhere close. You can still decide whether to make it static or shared or both, and a distribution can pick the shared build to avoid security fix hassles. > Yes, this definitely can have its place in gnulib, because it is glibc > functionality that is not present on all other systems. Notable difference is that glibc provides a stable API and ABI, unlike gnulib. I may sound like ranting, but that's not my intent; rather, the freedom gnulib gains by not providing stability, has a cost, and it is often paid by people not developing gnulib: users of gnulib and distributors of packages that use gnulib. This setting may lead to interests being represented on this list in a skewed way. Cheers, Ralf
