pppd namespace pollution

[Valette Eric]

Till Straumann wrote:
> Here are some symbols defined and globally exported by pppd.
> I didn't even include things like "link_down", "exit_code", "write_char"
> just the worst ones:
> 
>    debug output modem netmask protocols status user
>    line character clean echo quiet report frame magic
>    privileged die hostname ifname phase progname
>    linep lock temp2 fcs demand framelen framemax
>    crtscts devnam getword holdoff initializer inspeed
>    kdebugflag linkname lockflag maxconnect maxfail
>    nodetach notty passwd persist updetach welcomer
>    print_string relock slprintf strlcat strlcpy
>    unlock vslprintf read_packet setdtr sys_cleanup
>    sys_close sys_init wait_input baud_rate detached
>    devstat do_callback hungup novm prepass
> 
> IMHO, this is unacceptable for RTEMS-4.6. Couldn't you at least create a
> 'configure' option '--enable-pppd' as for the rdbg package, please? So
> people who want to pollute their namespace have to explicitely ask for it?
> 
> Sorry for being a pain but this causes a lot of trouble for me.
> 
> -- Till.
> 
> PS. Ideally, all of those add-on applications should be unbundled
> or at least made 'configure options'.
> 
> Here are some goodies from the webserver: "error", "trace", "dirname"

While I agree with the namespace polution problem, I think its easy to 
understand why things are like that :
	- The sources for the program originally come from system where 
namespace polution is not a problem as each process has its own address 
space,
	- If you modify all the globals, tracking changes  of the original 
packages and apply them becomes a nightmare,

So, at least, there is a tradeoff between name space polution and 
easiness to apply original packages changes. So at least package 
maintainer (if such a notion exist in rtems), should be prepared to have 
  a lot more work if such changes are commited...


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