Re: [Freetype] [patch] A bunch of minor typos in current CVS

[Juliusz Chroboczek]

>> For the first time in history, the XFree86 backend builds against an
>> unpatched version of FreeType 2.

WL> This is good news!  Just curious: Do you have similar problems with
WL> other libraries or is FreeType special?

Well, there are no problems if you want to simply use a library.  The
issue is about converting an existing library into a platform-
independent server module, in which case you cannot use the platform's
standard libraries, because you cannot know at build-time whether
you're going to run on e.g. Linux, FreeBSD, SVR4 or even OS/2.

As far as I'm aware, there are currently two standard libraries that
can be built as loadable modules: Mesa and FreeType, so we really
cannot say to have enough experience to answer your question.  I once
adapted Ghostscript to run as a loadable module; I converted 200.000
lines of extremely portable code (that, in particular, used a scheme
similar to the one in ftstdlib.h) in two afternoons.

Not everyone is a fan of the platform-independent loader; it is a
complex piece of software that some people like to #ifdef away.  In
particular, Keith has been suggesting that FreeType should be
considered as a system library, that XFree86 should require its
presence in order to build, and that we should simply be linking
against the installed version.  I'm tempted to agree, and may very
well follow his advice when 2.1.1 is widely deployed.

                                        Juliusz