Josh Hurst writes: > On 2/5/07, David.Comay at sun.com <David.Comay at sun.com> wrote: > > I'm confused. If these APIs are not public, then people should not be > > playing around with using the APIs except in the context by which > > they're ARCed. > > The ksh93 API is public for everyone else when compiling the source > from ATT. Why are you trying to prevent the usage of the API by adding > more barriers? The Solaris manual page already says that Sun considers > it 'not public'. Why isn't this enough?
As far as I can tell, David is doing no such thing. The ksh93 project team itself proposed that a number of its libraries remain "Project Private" for now, including libshell and others. If you read PSARC 2006/550, you'll see that the project team apparently intends to make them public later. That's their choice. In case it's unclear, the distinction between "public" and "private" is that the former requires at least documentation and a commitment to stability. The latter does not. It has nothing whatsoever to do with adding "barriers." As a consequence of making them private, projects _outside_ of this one should _not_ be using those libraries. In the case you cite, such a person is downloading non-Solaris code and compiling it, and is thus subject to whatever guarantees that (non-Solaris) provider makes. In other words, the existence of that code somewhere else just has nothing to do with the issue. For more information on stability levels and attributes, and how they're used within Sun and Open Solaris, see: http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/arc/policies/interface-taxonomy/ -- James Carlson, Solaris Networking <james.d.carlson at sun.com> Sun Microsystems / 1 Network Drive 71.232W Vox +1 781 442 2084 MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757 42.496N Fax +1 781 442 1677
