Brian Cameron writes:
> I think the complication with libraries such as libnotify is that
> they are free software projects, so while Sun can say "anything we
> ship that uses this will come from the JDS team so it is project
> private", this doesn't mean that 3rd parties or others in the
> free software community might not write stuff that uses it.  It
> isn't really private since the source code is freely available, as
> are ABI docs, websites, mail list archive discussions, etc.

I agree that we need to pay heed to the intent of the author.

However, if all that we deliver is the .so.1 file without the
compilation symlink and without the header files needed to use the
library, users aren't going to run into this very easily.

We can always make it Committed in the future if it turns out that
there really is more than just this one consumer.

> So this sort of interface falls in the fuzzy ground between Uncommitted,
> External, and Private.  From Sun's perspective, we can consider it
> Private.  From a realistic perspective, it is Uncommitted.  That's my
> take.

It's hard for me to determine what the libdaemon author's intent was,
or whether it's in fact used anywhere outside of this project, or the
general [Linux] community "feeling" about this library.  If it's not
used elsewhere, then there's no reason to clutter the system with
documentation on stuff that's just never used and would serve only to
confuse.

> Isn't OpenSolaris trying to encourage developers to adopt it's platform?

Of course.  That doesn't mean turning it into a dumping ground.

> Quality manpages and good documentation are probably the sort of thing that
> attracts developers, no?

Absolutely.  We can't do a half-baked job here.  It should be either a
good first-class citizen on its own merits, or should be buried
deeply where it won't hurt anyone.

The project team seems to assert that it belongs in the latter
category.  Are you sure it's in the former?  It's been around for a
while, but I can't see much that has decided to use it.  The web page
says ifplugd, Avahi, ivam2, Nautilus-Share, and aeswepd.

Of those, only Avahi seems to have any applicability to any future
version of [Open]Solaris.  The rest are seem to be duplicates of
existing features/projects.

-- 
James Carlson, Solaris Networking              <james.d.carlson at sun.com>
Sun Microsystems / 1 Network Drive         71.232W   Vox +1 781 442 2084
MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757   42.496N   Fax +1 781 442 1677

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