Date:	Fri, 23 Feb 2001 10:22:15 +0200
From:	"Eli Zaretskii" <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
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To:	haible AT ilog DOT fr
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CC:	ST001906 AT HRZ1 DOT HRZ DOT TU-Darmstadt DOT De, djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com
In-reply-to:	<14997.39190.56279.673765@honolulu.ilog.fr> (message from Bruno
	Haible on Thu, 22 Feb 2001 23:56:22 +0100 (CET))
Subject:	Re: DJGPP specific patch for libiconv-1.5.1
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> From: Bruno Haible <haible AT ilog DOT fr>
> Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 23:56:22 +0100 (CET)
> 
> > Due to the great amount of name collsions in this package, I would
> > like to discuss the appropiate strategy for this package at
> > djgpp-workers first.
> 
> I like the fnchange.lst solution. It confines the problem to a single
> file, and lets the Unix developers do their work without imposing
> unduly 8+3 restrictions on them.

With all due respect, I'd suggest to reconsider this.

First, there are no 8+3 restrictions here.  All that is required is
that (1) file names do not clash after truncation to 8+3 limits, and
(2) file names do not use characters, such as `+' and `,', that aren't
allowed on DOS.

From my experience with many GNU packages, these conditions are not
hard to satisfy.  Some very large packages, such as Emacs and Texinfo,
use these rules and I'm not aware of any grave problems with them,
especially since there's a program which automatically reveals
problematic file names.

By contrast, fnchange.lst-style solution in practice means that,
unless you have an active maintainer of the DJGPP port on your team,
the port will become broken very soon, when some new files are added
to the distribution, but not to fnchange.lst.  I'm involved in several
projects which use this method, and I can tell you that fnchange.lst
suffers from bit-rot every few weeks, and is a constant PITA, both for
me as the DJGPP port maintainer, and for the head maintainer who,
theoretically, should have been free of this problem.

Looking at fnchange.lst that Juan produced, it strikes me that the
number of files that cause name collisions is small, and the
collisions can be resolved fairly easily.  This is not a monster
distribution, like GCC or GDB, where there are hundreds of files that
need to be renamed.

Thanks in advance.

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