Bruno Haible <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> The default in make-3.79 -- borrowed from libit-0.7 -- is to *always*
> use the included gettext!
I'm ready to change the default, given that some clues are auto-configured
to discover that the installed gettext is better than the included one.
Including the system's gettext by default had created a lot of problems
in the past, and I would not return to these problems because some (still
experimental) version is better. Also, GNU gettext should _also_ be updated,
it has been kind of put aside for `libc' work, and not everybody runs `libc'
(yet :-).
> Not only does this make the program larger by 8.5 KB = 6%, it also
> deprives the user of added functionality in the glibc-2.2 gettext.
Once again, the functionality should be made available through a GNU
`gettext' release. And if a best GNU `gettest' is installed, the memory
footprint of the included version might be avoided.
> I'd now even suggest that you drop libit's gettext, and instead use
> the same scheme as textutils, sh-utils, texinfo, lynx, tar, fileutils,
> gcc, etc. and which has been working properly for 4 years.
If I went away from that older scheme, this is because I (and some other
maintainers) found it unsatisfactory. Also, for the record, I've been
kind of instrumental in developing that old scheme, so by moving forward to
something else, I'm kind of criticizing my own past decisions. Ulrich and
I surely discussed the old scheme a great deal at the time, but Ulrich does
not seem to listen anymore nowadays (Richard Stallman looks more speakable
by comparison :-), and I'm rather uncomfortable feeling stuck in the past.
I will agree that the new scheme does not have 4 years of experience in
it, but to get it going, we have to be a few collaborating maintainers
using it. I want to support it, at least, and need the collaboration of
other maintainers to get it right, instead of their dismissal.
--
François Pinard http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pinard
