installing libiberty

[Golubev I. N.]

I observe that there are too many versions of libiberty.  (1) binutils
and (2) gdb distributions contain different libiberty snapshots from
the same (`src') cvs repository (bfd, opcodes are handled the same
way).  (3) gcc cvs repository contains another libiberty directory,
and "merged from gcc" log messages are scattered around `src'
libiberty repository.  gcc distribution contain snapshots from gcc
repository.

It would be OK if libiberty is used only internally while building
programs.  But all 3 versions of it mentioned above are installed, and
(normally) in the same location: "$prefix/lib/libiberty.a".

Why install them at all?  How should users of corresponding packages
use any version of libiberty?  And how should they distinguish between
different versions?

With bfd, opcodes it is a little better since there is a single cvs
repository.  What is worse with them is that they may be configured as
shared libraries (and usually it is desirable).  But sharing them
between released gdb and binutils is not done easily.