From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id SAA07071; Fri, 21 May 2004 18:29:00 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id SAA06377 for ; Fri, 21 May 2004 18:28:59 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ptb-relay01.plus.net (ptb-relay01.plus.net [212.159.14.212]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id i4LGSwEV001251 for ; Fri, 21 May 2004 18:28:58 +0200 Received: from [80.229.56.224] (helo=chetara) by ptb-relay01.plus.net with esmtp (Exim) id 1BRCtF-0001Ug-Gk for caml-list@inria.fr; Fri, 21 May 2004 16:28:57 +0000 From: Jon Harrop Organization: University of Cambridge To: caml-list@inria.fr Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Large projects in OCaml Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 17:27:15 +0100 User-Agent: KMail/1.6.2 References: <20040519172442.30413.qmail@web14522.mail.yahoo.com> <200405211228.34673.jdh30@cam.ac.uk> <3CCE10AB-AB25-11D8-8E42-000393863F70@exomi.com> In-Reply-To: <3CCE10AB-AB25-11D8-8E42-000393863F70@exomi.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <200405211727.15634.jdh30@cam.ac.uk> X-Miltered: at nez-perce with ID 40AE2E4A.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Loop: caml-list@inria.fr X-Spam: no; 0.00; caml-list:01 2004:99 permutation:01 lablgl:01 camlimages:01 open-source:01 lablgl:01 camlimages:01 purchase:99 binary-only:01 avoided:01 stupid:01 undocumented:01 compiler:01 anyhow:01 Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk On Friday 21 May 2004 13:49, Ville-Pertti Keinonen wrote: > Your library version obviously needs to depend on a specific version of > OCaml as well as specific versions of libraries used by your > library...but for a commercial library, this should be the case, > anyhow. You shouldn't be supporting any versions of OCaml and > libraries you depend on except the ones you have built and tested > against. Do you think I should build, test and distribute for a variety of compiler and third party library versions then? That would be a set of object files for each permutation? > This isn't specific to OCaml, either. C is rare in that it has had > stable and standardized enough ABIs that you can usually get away with > using different versions of compilers and system libraries. With other > libraries, YMMV, but things that break due to version incompatibilities > aren't rare. Ok, I just want to make sure that I'm providing the best possible service. :-) > But why would your library depend on *their* changing object file, > unless its a third party library, in which case they should be using > the same version you built against? I meant third party, sorry. I'm using my own version of lablgl as well as camlimages. I'll probably open-source an alternative to lablgl (based upon Isaac Trott's idlgl) but I'd like to use the standard camlimages. > In any case, you really should consider distributing your library in > source form to licensees. Given a choice, I'd never purchase a > binary-only library for any purpose (sadly, I often don't have a > choice). I don't mind distributing the bulk of my code in source form (particularly the demos and paraphenalia) but I would like to keep the core closed source, unless someone is willing to pay an obscene amount of money for it. :-) > Almost all of the problems I've run into with purchased binary > libraries could've been avoided if I had the source, and I've spent > unreasonable amounts of time tracking down totally stupid problems > (mostly due to undocumented assumptions). I can't think of any binary > (non-system) libraries that I haven't run into unnecessary problems > with during the last decade...prior to that, I wasn't used to having > source code, so I didn't associate problems with binary distributions. Ok, I'll keep considering distributing a source version. Maybe a cut-down version... Cheers, Jon. ------------------- To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners