RFC: future of libfreebsd

[Petr Salinger <Petr.Salinger@seznam.cz>]

Hi,

currently we have libfreebsd source package,
which provides some functions. Recently some
of these functions have been moved info libbsd.

Similarly sysctlnametomib() will be in our glibc 2.10.
We may consider to drop libfreebsd at all.

IMHO, we could move needed functions in

* libbsd: functions which can be provided on linux
* eglibc: functions which are provided under plain FreeBSD in libc
* in some library from freebsd-libs (i.e. in libkvm0)
* directly in the place where it is needed

The current libfreebsd exports:

LIBFREEBSD_0.0 {
  global:
    link_addr; link_ntoa;
    strmode;
    devname; devname_r;
    getbootfile;
    sysctlbyname; sysctlnametomib;
    nlist; __fdnlist;
  local:
    *;
};

> From libbsd are already available:
	strmode, nlist, __fdnlist

> From glibc 2.10 will be available (at least):
	sysctlbyname, sysctlnametomib

The remaining functions are:
    link_addr; link_ntoa;
    devname; devname_r;
    getbootfile;

I didn't check, which are the needed functions used by packages
depending on libfreebsd0. Could this check be done easily ?

We have to decide, before eglibc 2.10 will go into unstable,
which functions could/should be moved into eglibc and do it.
My candidates for eglibc are devname_r()/devname().

Comments, suggestions, ... ?

Petr