Drazen Kacar wrote:
> I'm concerned about something else. You're promoting libtool usage. I
> can prove that it doesn't work correctly on some platforms which it
> allegedly supports (according to libtool documentation). If many
> people say many times that libtool solves linking problems, that
> won't become true just because they are saying it so often. But the
> observable effect is that many other developers will never look into
> linking issues, just because they think that there is this magic tool
> which can do it for them.
Drazen, you've done a excellent job of explaining the problems that libtool
has on Solaris (and possibly other platforms). Personally, I would classify
most of these as bugs in libtool. One or two sound like feature requests to
me, but they do sound like reasonable requests and probably should be
implemented. In either case, IMHO, the preferred course of action would be to
get the bugs in libtool fixed instead of going around telling package
maintainers that they shouldn't use libtool. Have you contacted the libtool
maintainers and itemized the bugs you've found and your proposed solutions?
Or better yet, have you submitted patches? If you have and the libtool
maintainers are unresponsive to your concerns, then I'll agree you have a
legitimate beef here. Personally, I think using libtool is a big win for
package maintainers, who shouldn't have to keep re-inventing the same wheel
over and over again. That assumes any libtool deficiencies you've cited can
be fixed, of course.
Just my two cents,
Ed
