Would anybody miss bibtool-dev?
I am working on taking over the bibtool package, QA-orphaned last
week. I find to my surprise that the source package builds not only a
'bibtool' package, but also 'bibtool-dev' which contains a static
library.
I question the utility of the bibtool-dev package:
- No packages depend or build-depend on it (no recommends or suggests
either).
- It has only 4 popcon votes for it.
- The library simply consists of every source file for the bibtool
binary, except main.c
- It does not appear to be designed with reusable abstractions in mind.
- Most symbols that are exported from one .o in the library are used
by another. Theses include "db_find", "error", "init_entries",
"get_item", "seen", "show_version", "add_word", "new_string",
"sbputc", "lower". No namespace conservation effort is apparent.
Including this in any larger piece of software would be a tiptoeing
business.
I am tempted to decide that bibtool-dev is just a waste of mirror
space and Packages.gz bandwidth. On the other hand, it might be
considered unethical to adopt a package only to kill off one of its
.debs.
Opinions solicited.
--
Henning Makholm "Nett hier.
Aber waren Sie schon mal in Baden-Württemberg?"
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