On Fri, May 09, 2003 at 12:35:44PM -0400, Owen Taylor wrote: >I don't really understand how having the the dependencies in the XFree86 >tree ensures that their license are X compatible; it seems to me >that needs to be decided when you decide to depend on the library :-) Exactly, and they can't go into the XFree86 tree unless their license is compatible. So, a very practical test is "can this dependency be included in the XFree86 source tree?" We're using a method that has proven effective in practice, and in the end that counts for more than speculation about unproven methods. >And I'm not sure that the current set of XFree86 dependencies should >cause much worry about portability ... freetype/zlib/expat are all >used far beyond the portability bounds of XFree86. > >I certainly understand the worry about external dependencies causing >difficulties for people building the system... it's a legitimate >issue, and we have a worse problem with it for GTK+ which has >roughly twice as many "external dependencies" as XFree86. And XFree86 has a method for dealing with this problem. That method is flexible enough to allow the external dependencies to be externally supplied, so it's a win-win situation. >But I would argue that if you incorporate a copy of an external >library, you have the obligation *not* to install it in a way >that can affect the system. That's a build-time configuration issue, and in every case XFree86 can be configured to meet that "obligation". If you find a case where that isn't true, it's a bug that should be logged and fixed. David -- David Dawes Founder/committer/developer The XFree86 Project www.XFree86.org/~dawes _______________________________________________ Forum mailing list Forum@XFree86.Org http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/forum