Re: [RFC] Custom tag interface

[Bob Friesenhahn]

On Fri, 19 Mar 2004, Peter O'Gorman wrote:

> Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 18 Mar 2004, Peter O'Gorman wrote:
> >>If the reason is that /prefix/bin/libtool should support all possibilities,
> >>then I'd suggest that we stop installing /prefix/bin/libtool.
> >
> > Shame on you, Peter O'Gorman. Shame on you. :-)
> >
> > Libtool is a stand alone utility which can be used without any other
> > Auto tool to do useful things.  It was intended to be formally
> > installed from the beginning of libtool time, and we should not stop
> > doing so.
>
> What useful things does it do exactly? It is an extremely useful utility for
> developers who wish to package software and build shared code portably, I
> don't think that /usr/bin/libtool helps them to do that.

It provides a reliable way for library users to link with installed
libraries.  Not all library users use libtool to develop portable open
source packages which are configured using Autoconf.  A substantial
amount of software development is for private/proprietary/personal
use. These folks just want to use the installed library as intended.

There is no other tool which matches libtool's ability to link
properly with a library built and installed using libtool.

> Since this is being discussed, why do we need to install libtool? Doing so
> does nothing for us that I can see. You have given no real reasons Bob, and
> I'm feeling argumentative :)

Stop that!

Bob
======================================
Bob Friesenhahn
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http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen