From: fjh AT cs DOT mu DOT OZ DOT AU (Fergus Henderson) Subject: Re: Nobody in the world understands Gnu's 'ld'. 27 Mar 1997 16:34:43 -0800 Approved: cygnus DOT gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com Distribution: cygnus Message-ID: <199703271013.VAA16989.cygnus.gnu-win32@mundook.cs.mu.OZ.AU> Content-Type: text Original-To: jdinolt AT pacbell DOT net Original-Cc: gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com (gnu-win32) In-Reply-To: <33396ECE.69AF@pacbell.net> from "Joel Dinolt" at Mar 26, 97 10:45:34 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Original-Sender: owner-gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com 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 | "I have always known that the pursuit WWW: | of excellence is a lethal habit" PGP: finger fjh AT 128 DOT 250 DOT 37 DOT 3 | -- the last words of T. S. Garp. - For help on using this list, send a message to "gnu-win32-request AT cygnus DOT com" with one line of text: "help".