Re: guile-core and readline

[Clark McGrew <mcgrew@ale.physics.sunysb.edu>]

>>>>> "Roland" == Roland Orre <orre@nada.kth.se> writes:

    Roland> I have two suggestions to discuss here concerning: 1) What
    Roland> the libguile catalogue should contain.  2) Readline
    Roland> default strategies.

I understand that reasoning behind not includeing readline (and other
GPLed code) into GUILE, but it seems a little bit odd that one of the
FSF flagship projects can't use most FSF code.

Right now, the problem is limited to readline, but it could become
more general in the future.  It seems like now is a good time to think
about the general problem: How to segregate code with GPL from code
with GPL+exception.  It seems like a reasonable solution is to split
libguile into two libraries, libguile with the GPL exception and
another (your "guile-command") that is strict GPL.  I don't think the
link list is a problem since there can always be a guile-free-config
file.

At the moment the strict GPL library would only contain readline, but
it will probably grow in the future.  If it contains enough goodies
it's one more reason for guile applications to be GPLed.  I'd suggest
a name like libguile-free or libguile-gpl.  If possible I would like
to see it distributed as part of guile-core.  

    Roland> Readline should be enabled by default in the command line
    Roland> guile.  This is a good PR for newcomers and makes it much
    Roland> easier for anyone to start using guile.

It's not just newcomers.  Readline simply makes guile much easier to
use.  

    Roland> Each of these
    Roland> applications then have to include the readline module
    Roland> during linking.

As long as guile-command (guile-free) includes a version of
guile-config and the library contains an init_free routine it's not a
big deal.  

Cheers,

Clark