Re: Fixing -pthreads (Re: ports and -current)

Daniel Eischen wrote:
> This is about 3rd party applications built outside of
> ports.  The only possible problem you are going to
> have is on the link command, and it should be obvious
> that you're missing a link to the threads library.
> This is trivial to fix.  It's not like we're making
> someone change their code to accomodate library or
> kernel interface changes.
> 

This is exactly the case the is going to cause the problems, though.
For you, compiling a 3rd party app and dealing with failures in the
linker is easy to deal with.  For someone else, it might not be.  If
they go to compile an app and it compiles and runs fine on linux but
fails on FreeBSD with linker errors, it will likely leave a negative
impression in their mind.

I'm comparing my arguments to linux because a lot more apps are written
with linux in mind than with solaris in mind these days.  People who are
writing for linux or switching from linux might not know that
'-lpthread' is a requirement, but they are more likely to know that
'-pthread' will take care of all of that magic for them.  This argument
really comes down to ease of use and user experience.  Steering away
from de-facto standards steers us away from a positive user and
developer experience.

I'm perfectly happy to support the libkse->libpthread switch, and I'm
perfectly happy to support making libpthread be the default threading
library.  But, I strongly believe that we need to also treat -pthread
sanely.

Scott