[Xorg] shared vs static libraries

[Roland Mainz]

Daniel Stone wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 2004-08-11 at 01:30, Roland Mainz wrote:
> > Both XprintUtil and XprintAppUtil are not stable yet (and at least
> > XprintUtil needs a rewrite, parts of the code would win various awards
> > for ugly code... =:-), there are still some API changes required before
> > the stuff can be shipped as shared library.
> 
> Changing API is no excuse for not having a shared library; you change
> the API and bump the soname, it's as simple as that. If you change the
> API in a static library, people still need to change their code anyway.
> 
> Change, bump.

No, that's not possible. We would have to gurantee backwards
compatibility to the old version (at least the commercial Unices may
require that), either via lots of #ifdef in the code or via storing the
old code in a seperate dir. The mess with libXaw6 vs. libXaw7 is a good
example of this nightmare.
Right now both APIs are NOT stable and should NOT be shipped as shared
libraries for X11R6.8.0. Otherwise the pain will be much bigger than the
benefit.

----

Bye,
Roland

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