Comment 5 for bug 8111

Message-ID: <email address hidden>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 17:03:26 +0300
From: Tommi Virtanen <email address hidden>
To: "Steinar H. Gunderson" <email address hidden>,
 <email address hidden>
Subject: Re: Bug#272127: freecdb: does not provide a shared library

Steinar H. Gunderson wrote:
> freecdb does not provide a shared library, even though policy requires
> it to do so. This leads to bugs like #243007 (making vpopmail RC-buggy)
> and possibly others.
>
> If there is some good reason for freecdb not to be a shared library
> (Policy 8.3), at the very least there should be a freecdb_pic version,
> but I can't see any such reason.

--8<--
    In some cases, it is acceptable for a library to be available in
static form only; these cases include:

      * libraries for languages whose shared library support is immature
or unstable

      * libraries whose interfaces are in flux or under development
(commonly the case when the library's major version
        number is zero, or where the ABI breaks across patchlevels)

      * libraries which are explicitly intended to be available only in
static form by their upstream author(s)

                                                         --8<--

The last item very much matches freecdb.

The package consists of two static libraries, each one _less than 4kB_
in size. I see no point in making shared libraries of them, unless a
really compelling technical argument proves I _must_. And even then I'm
much happier just forcing people to migrate to tinycdb, a cleaner
reimplementation of the same idea, called tinycdb; any project that
isn't dead itself, and still depends on freecdb, should migrate to
tinycdb. TinyCDB even gets updated every once in a while.

The only reason freecdb exists is to support software that wants to use
djb's cdb, and it even isn't API-compatible with the newer versions of
cdb. I am upstream for this fork, and am officially stating that freecdb
is _DEAD DEAD DEAD_. Pining for the fjords!