From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 23459 invoked by alias); 23 Jun 2009 16:42:29 -0000 Received: (qmail 23450 invoked by uid 22791); 23 Jun 2009 16:42:28 -0000 X-SWARE-Spam-Status: No, hits=-2.5 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from sibelius.xs4all.nl (HELO sibelius.xs4all.nl) (82.92.89.47) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.43rc1) with ESMTP; Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:42:20 +0000 Received: from brahms.sibelius.xs4all.nl (kettenis@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by brahms.sibelius.xs4all.nl (8.14.3/8.14.3) with ESMTP id n5NGg61n024737; Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:42:07 +0200 (CEST) Received: (from kettenis@localhost) by brahms.sibelius.xs4all.nl (8.14.3/8.14.3/Submit) id n5NGg6S9014370; Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:42:06 +0200 (CEST) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:42:00 -0000 Message-Id: <200906231642.n5NGg6S9014370@brahms.sibelius.xs4all.nl> From: Mark Kettenis To: dje@google.com CC: uweigand@de.ibm.com, drow@false.org, gdb-patches@sourceware.org In-reply-to: (message from Doug Evans on Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:55:39 -0700) Subject: Re: Per-type architecture (Re: [10/15] Basic value access routines) References: <20090622205935.GA5900@caradoc.them.org> <200906230041.n5N0fMYW019073@d12av02.megacenter.de.ibm.com> Mailing-List: contact gdb-patches-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-patches-owner@sourceware.org X-SW-Source: 2009-06/txt/msg00613.txt.bz2 > Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:55:39 -0700 > From: Doug Evans > > On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 5:41 PM, Ulrich Weigand wrote: > > In fact, if it weren't that we want to avoid excessive > > dependencies on XML libraries, I'd argue we should just parse XML > > into a standard DOM tree representation as provided by those. > > > > Looking at this this way, serialization/deserialization of XML into and out > > of those "DOM tree" structures *should not* involve too much GDB specifics > > like GDB private data structures, but simply follow the self-describing > > property of the XML format ... > > OOC, what "excessive dependencies" are you referring to? > It seems odd to want to avoid dependencies on libraries, libraries are good. > [I'm sure there's more to the story here, hence the question. :-)] Some people think that a basic UNIX-like system should include the tools to build and debug computer programs, at least those written in C. So on OpenBSD (and most of the other BSD's) we ship gcc, binutils and gdb as part of the base operating system. This means that if these tools depend on certain libraries, we have to include those libraries as well. There are a couple of issues here: * We think we should not ship any libraries that have a license that is more restrictive than the BSD license. * We think we should only ship "standard" libraries since shipping "non-standard" libraries encourages people to write programs that are non-portable. * We think that we should only ship libraries that meet certain minimal quality standards, especially with respect to security. Another perhaps less OpenBSD-specific argument is that I think it should be possible for people to compile software themselves. This sort of breaks down if before being able to compile that software I first need to install a dozen of libtraries, especially if those libraries themseleves have dependencies.