Simon Josefsson simon@josefsson.org writes:
I don't understand why this is a Nettle problem, since I don't recall having to do anything like that for any of the libraries I maintain. Could it be because I use automake and libtool?
Sure, it's not a very nettle-specific problem. Maybe current automake and/or libtool does the right thing, but I doubt it.
I think I've tried to explain what the problem is a couple of times before, but appearantly I failed at that. I'll try one more time: Please try out the the default behaviour of
./configure && make && make install
with your libraries (or any random library using autoconf and default GNU installation conventions). I would expect it to break badly on, e.g., a x86_64 redhat-based system, with an installed gcc which defaults to 64-bit objects (-m64 enabled by default). Then make install will install in /usr/local/lib, destroying any previous 32-bit installation of the same library. Correct install location on this system, which follows the linux fhs, is /usr/local/lib64.
Similar problems would occur on the (a bit less likely) combinations of
64-bit Solaris (sparc or x86_64), if you have installed a gcc to default to 64-bit.
freebsd or debian gnu/linux on x86_64, if for some reason you have installed a compiler which defaults to 32-bit.
I want the default behavior to not break things, that's all. And it's no big deal. The bug in the current configure logic should be easy to fix (I've probably spent about as much time on this email as it will take to fix the problem).
If automake would solve this issue, how about using it in Nettle?
No thanks. But I'd be happy to reuse any decent autoconf macros solving the problem, from automake or elsewhere. If there are any.
- Decide which flavor of LGPL licensing should be used. Options: LGPLv2+, LGPLv3+ or dual license LGPLv3+ and GPLv2+.
Is there a reason to change from the current LGPLv2+ before the next release?
Maybe not. Moving to LGPLv2+ is definitely the easiest and smallest change.
- Update NEWS and documentation (regarding serpent and licensing).
I can help with that, if you want. I did a diff between 2.1 and the current code, and it is a fairly small set of changes.
That would be appreciated. I started on the NEWS entry a while back, I just checked in my current version. I don't remember off the top of my head what the last item, "Interface cleanup", refers to. (I usually review the ChangeLog rather than actual diffs when updating the NEWS file).
Using UTF-8 encoding for the files instead of ISO-8859-1 could be one.
That should be done some time, but I don't think I'll bother about it now. E.g., the move away from cvs seems more important, and that will also have to wait until after release.
Regards, /Niels