Depending on external libraries

[Michel Dänzer]

On Thu, 2004-03-11 at 19:36, Kendall Bennett wrote:
> Egbert Eich <eich@pdx.freedeskop.org> wrote:
> 
> > That's what I call 'external dependencies'.

[...]

> > Expat: convenience.

Note that Expat is used by the new configuration framework in the DRI
tree. Works fine here with the system provided version though.


> > Mesa: The DRI client libs still have some strong dependencies into Mesa.
> >       I don't know when this is going to change. 

Possibly never.

> >       As soon as it does we can make it optional.
> 
> I don't think you can remove Mesa from the core X server source code. 

That may be true, at least as long as Mesa is required for the
server-side GLX support.

> In fact I would argue that Mesa and DRI should in fact be merged *into* the 
> core X server source code tree (as in CVS tree - it can still be built 
> modularly). 

IMHO quite the opposite should happen in the long run. The DRI drivers
should be released together with Mesa, and they and libGL should be
removed from the X tree. The main effect of them being in the X tree has
been that most people are running hopelessly outdated, feature-lacking
and buggy 3D drivers.

> The 3D code in X is broken up into two pieces. One piece is the client 
> side GLX libraries and the other piece is the back end 3D rendering 
> drivers. The back end code is tightly integrated with the 2D display 
> driver modules (as it should be), so it is important that both of 
> those modules are shipped and built together.

There are more pieces actually, but all their interfaces are versioned
in order to provide backwards compatibility. There is no strong
technical reason to keep the pieces together.


> IMHO the primary reason why DRI exists in a separate place today is 
> because the DRI developers didn't get the access to the XFree86 tree that 
> they needed. 

That's my impression as well, but I wasn't around at the time yet.

> Perhaps now is the time to merge the projects into one CVS location.

I agree, the question is which parts really belong into the X tree.


-- 
Earthling Michel Dänzer      |     Debian (powerpc), X and DRI developer
Libre software enthusiast    |   http://svcs.affero.net/rm.php?r=daenzer