Fixing Re: Is libtool being maintained at all?

[Dalibor Topic]

Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
> On Mon, 14 Jul 2003, Dalibor Topic wrote:

> > Our patches are against libtool 1.5, I hope that's current enough.
>
>
> Patches against current CVS libtool are definitely preferred even
> though this puts more burden on the patch submitter.  The easier and
> less risky your patch is to apply, the more likely it is to make its
> way into libtool.  Libtool is complicated code with lots of similar
> parts, so it is easy for 'patch' to screw up if the patch was from a
> somewhat different libtool.  Also, the patch submitter may discover
> that the bug he found has already been corrected in CVS.

Sure. the patch I sent (and two others I have) applies to kaffe's 
/cvs/kaffe/kaffe/libltdl/acinclude.m4 which corresponds to libtool's 
libtool.m4. I can resend the patch against the current libtool CVS if 
you would please take a look at it. It is a trivial 6 line patch that 
just sets lt_cv_sys_max_cmd_len to 8K on amigaos. There haven't been any 
amigaos specific patches since

1999-04-04  Alexandre Oliva  <address@hidden>

according to ChangeLog.1.

It's not like I'm trying to reinvent the wheel here. Libtools command 
line length test takes *hours* on old computers and should be fixed, or 
workaround patches need to be accepted. Noone on a slow system will want 
to upgrade to libtool 1.5 if that means waiting for an hour or more 
until libtool decides that it has finished finding the maximal shell 
line length. That's simply insane. My patch is simple workaround around 
that bit of brain damage. I would prefer to have this fixed in a more 
general way, since it also hurts other operating systems on hardware not 
made for slow algorithms. ;)

The proper way to fix it could be to do a binary search over multiples 
of 2 instead of the linear search emplyed now. Use a resonable minamal 
value like 2**13, which leaves only a few options between 2**13 and 
2**17, which is the current upper limit for the test. Starting with 
2**15, you only need three tests to figure out the maximal command line 
length, instead of 17. How does that sound?

> > On a side note, can I assume that all maintainers are listed in the
> > AUTHORS file?
>
>
> The AUTHORS file lists all the formal maintainers, past and present.
> Several of these authors have not maintained libtool in several years.

Which leaves you quite alone with libtool, I guess, since the list is 
not that huge. How many active maintainers are left?

Your last mail didn't sound like you plan to offer new maintainers to 
join. If we could persuade inactive maintainers to step off the plate 
and make room for a new developer generation, would you consider 
recruiting new maintainers?

cheers,
dalibor topic