Re: Windows DLL support update (a bit slimmer version)

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:07:15 -0700
> From: Joel Brobecker <brobecker@adacore.com>
> 
> > > Given the growing importance that XML is taking in GDB, maybe there
> > > will be a day when it is worth having a copy of the expat sources in
> > > GDB, and always build with expat.
> > 
> > I was told that importing expat was unacceptable.  I was also told
> > that requiring it be installed to build GDB was unacceptable.  This
> > is about the best I can manage given those restrictions.
> 
> Yes, I remember too. That's the best decision we could all make
> given these restrictions.

I've just re-read that discussion.  To put the above in context, each
``restriction'' was given by a different group of persons.  Only one
was opposed to including libexpat in the GDB distribution, while 3
others were opposed to requiring libexpat for building GDB.  The FSF
recommends not to bundle external packages (for legal reasons, not for
technical ones), so you could count that in addition to the single
individual that opposed bundling libexpat.

> DLL support is pretty important in my opinion, and some users might
> be surprised to see it disappear silently because their system does
> not have libexpat installed.

Yes.  How about adding a warning message to GDB stating that lack of
libexpat causes the related feature to not work, when the user tries
to invoke a command that's affected?

> Is it worth keeping a list of the "target-specific" features that
> require expat?

I'd say yes, and that list should be in the user manual, not in
README.