On 16 April 2010 11:57, Sergey Bochkanov <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hello, Bill.
>
> You wrote 16 апреля 2010 г., 12:23:43:
>
>> What you suggest is to effectively maintain two versions of MPIR, one
>> version 2.1 the other 3.
>
> No,  quite  the  opposite.  I  am talking about plugin-based framework
> where  framework itself is 2.1, and some plugins are 3.0, some are 2.1
> too.  Here 'plugin' means either implementation of mpn-function or one
> of the higher layer functions.
>
> I  don't know MPIR's internals good enough, but I thought that library
> is modular: i.e. you can change mpn internals without affecting higher
> layers  and  you  can  change implementation of some function  without
> affecting another functions.
>

It took us months to merge the LGPL v3+ code from GMP for the current
release. The problem is not plugging things in, it is writing the
plugins so they are compatible.

>>  We  did  consider  such  an  option,  but it is much harder than it
>>  seems,  and  we simply don't have sufficiently many contributors to
>>  manage that,
>
> Could you point me out one or two of the difficulties? May be there is
> a way to workaround them...

Different function names, bugs, lack of test code, many different issues.

>
>
>> there  seems  to  be  a  lot  of  interest  in contributing to a BSD
>> licensed  library.  Another  individual I asked about this said they
>> thought  it  was  a  great idea and that one of the main things that
>> puts  them off currently is the LGPL.
>
> What is wrong with LGPL as long as it is 2.1? Currently I see only one
> drawback  -  it can't be used in a BSD open source project. However, I
> know of no BSD open source project which may be interested in multiple
> precision.
>

The things wrong with LGPL:

* the number of contributors is too small even after two years of
working on this project
* companies are suspicious of it - worried the license will be changed
to GPL (I know this for a fact, I'm not surmising)
* if we use version 2.1 we can't use code from GMP and contributors
who refuse to use v3+ only (of which there are numerous)

It's BSD or v3+. We don't have any other viable options. And we've
demonstrated that. If MPIR was going to get piles of regular
contributors, we would have done by now.

Bill.

>
> --
> With best regards,
>  Sergey                          mailto:[email protected]
>
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