Subject: Re: Nobody in the world understands Gnu's 'ld'.
From: [email-masked] (Fergus Henderson)

27 Mar 1997 16:34:43 -0800
Approved: [email-masked]
Distribution: cygnus
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Original-Cc: [email-masked] (gnu-win32)
In-Reply-To: <[email-masked]> from "Joel Dinolt" at Mar 26, 97 10:45:34 am
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Joel Dinolt wrote:
> 
> I thought GNU ld was part of the
> standart GNU package, and that the ld with cyg-win32 was just a port
> win32 port of the standard GNU ld. If this is the case, it's not
> really Cygnus that should be "making sure it is well documented
> and properly structured."

`ld' is part of the GNU binutils package, but Cygnus is (I believe)
the central maintainer of that package, just as Linus is the central
maintainer of the Linux kernel, Richard Kenner of the FSF is the
central maintainer of gcc, etc.

> I would assume that the structure has been
> an evolution over many years(like emacs or rcs or cvs) and has been
> tinkered with by many people.

Of course, but central maintainer who is responsible for merging in
all the different patches, issuing new releases, etc., should also
be responsible for maintaining the quality of the software.

> And as far as documentation, it might
> be easiest to start at the GNU Home Page, since it is the cyg-win32 
> ld is based on the standard GNU ld...

I was talking mainly about source documentation, not user documentation.
The user documentation for `ld' is actually quite good.

> but free software is free software, and you have the source, as
> cryptic as it may be.

Uh, no offence, but this sounds to me like a cop-out: are you
suggesting that because it is free software, it doesn't matter if the
quality is poor?

(Thankfully the people at Cygnus who have responded to this thread
_don't_ have that attitude.)

-- 
Fergus Henderson <[email-masked]>   |  "I have always known that the pursuit
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>   |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
PGP: finger [email-masked]         |     -- the last words of T. S. Garp.
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