>> > Or, are you saying that all non-Dennis-Ritchie derived C compiler >> > must call their runtime library something other than libc? >> > >> If you install it in the global namespace as "libdwarf" and it >> therefore creates an anti-dependency on the original, then, yes, you >> have stolen the name of the previous project. If instead you >> installed it under some elftoolchain/libdwarf, or maybe >> elftoolchain-libdwarf, that might be different. > > So, do you have a libc and is that Dennis Ritchie's libc? > There's no stealing. If this upset you so greatly, then > use the original libdwarf.
I am attempting to have a professional conversation about engineering, not a conversation about who is more upset. This is just a fact about the ownership of names. There is a reason the concept of trademark exists. You are not allowed to start another business having the same name in the same market as another business as you have taken a name that they did work to establish and created confusion in the marketplace. That's the reason Mozilla changed Firebird to Firefox, to cite one prominent example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark "The essential function of a trademark is to exclusively identify the commercial source or origin of products or services, so a trademark, properly called, indicates source or serves as a badge of origin. In other words, trademarks serve to identify a particular business as the source of goods or services." It is also a conversation about not creating anti-dependencies in the global namespace. The fact that there are multiple implementations of libc is not a problem. The fact that they all install themselves under the same name is a very real problem when attempting to piecewise upgrade a system; I have had to not upgrade software just for this reason. Namespace anti-dependencies are a gratuitous difficulty that have no fundamental reason to exist. There are enough fundamental engineering problems without us adding gratuitous engineering problems. So for example, installing under a name like elftoolchain-libdwarf is more helpful than just libdwarf as it establishes whose libdwarf it is. If you then want to make a softlink from libdwarf to elftoochain-libdwarf on your system then that is easy to do, and could be a question asked as part of the install process. This is the solution we use for web browsers: they each have their own name and then you are asked which one you would like to be the default. Daniel ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration & more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=190641631&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk _______________________________________________ Elftoolchain-developers mailing list Elftoolchain-developers@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/elftoolchain-developers
