Separate packages (was Re: Web Server Patch)

[Chris Johns]

Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> Am Fre, 2003-04-11 um 00.26 schrieb Joel Sherrill:
> 
>>Till Straumann wrote:
>>>Please consider making each of these applications a separate
>>>library, at least.
> 
> Why? Where are the benefits? I don't see any.
> 

A couple of questions come to mind. Please excuse answering with questions.

Should we add more packages ?

For example I have Net SNMP (see the contrib dir) and Python (not full ported) 
running on RTEMS. These are large packages that are constantly being worked on.

If not then what should go in (why?, and who decides?) ?

Some reasons to keep packages separate are:

1) Scalability.
  a) Putting everything into a single lib slows linking down.
  b) The more packages you merge together the more revs you need to make.
  c) Testing time takes longer for Joel who releases the RTEMS package.
  d) Increased complexity to build it all. RTEMS would need to become
     a superset of all package build options and configuration. We currently
     have a range of configure options, header file defines, and runtime
     options.

2) Package Support.
  a) We should try and keep RTEMS support for a package in the package.
  b) A stable build environment in a package will easy package upgrades.
  c) Separate release cycles for each package.


On the negative side building an application requires a large stream of lib options.

Getting package configure scripts to work can be a bigger job than the porting of a 
package. Net-SNMP and Python and good examples of this point.

-- 
  Chris Johns, cjohns at cybertec.com.au