Re: FreeBSD 4.6 - binutils 2.14 installs useless libbfd

[Ian Lance Taylor <ian at airs dot com>]

Tomasz Kłoczko <kloczek@rudy.mif.pg.gda.pl> writes:

> <question mode=dumb>
> SONAME shared libbfd which comes with binutils on each release changes. Is
> it mean API also realy changes on each binutis release ?
> </question>

It's not a dumb question.  One answer is that the API probably does
change on each binutils release.  Another answer is that the BFD
maintainers aren't interested in maintaining a stable API: it's easier
to change the SONAME each time than it is to try to figure out whether
the API changed or not.

There are very few users of BFD other than the GNU binutils and gdb.
It's not unreasonable to force other users to either distribute their
own shared libbfd, or to link statically.

The basic issue is that the binutils are tied very closely to the
implementation of BFD (gdb is less closely tied).  Many binutils
changes require changes to the BFD API.  There is very little
advantage to trying to maintain a stable API.

Ian