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Re: Wish for 2002 ...


On Fri, Jan 11, 2002 at 07:20:21PM +0100, Felix von Leitner wrote:
> How can someone who doesn't understand the value of standardized APIs
> even begin to argue about our implementation of a standardized API?

Oh, it was you who contributed to glibc and not Thomas.

> > Now you've raised another, which is that somehow adding a function
> > that many people already use will actually *decrease* portability.
> > That's a new one, but it's also false.
> 
> See what adding the function to openssh did for the OpenBSD people.
> A separate project had to be forked off that makes the sources portable.

Well, that's not true.  Again, your don't know your history.

> This kind of software hell is something everyone else tries hard to
> avoid.  That's why people use autoconf (heard of it?) and libtool (you
> should try it!).
> 
> If your BSD software does not work on Linux, that's too bad, but
> frankly, I don't care.  Software that is not portable should be
> discarded.  Investing the time to make it more portable is a waste of
> time for most projects.  If there would have been a choice for openssh,
> people would have spent their time better.

Well, that's not true.  Zero time is spent on OpenSSH's portability
because of strlcpy -- just think of the hundred ways to handle utmp
across systems.  I guess that Damien would probably have used strlcpy
even if had to rewrite everything from the scratch.


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