Fixing -pthreads (Re: ports and -current)

[John Baldwin]

On 23-Sep-2003 Scott Long wrote:
> 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.

Erm, I thought (if I remember correctly), that all the autoconf scripts,
etc., that I've seen for Linnex use -lpthread, not -pthread.  So we are
actually becoming more like the de facto standard by dropping -pthread,
not less.  -pthread is a hack, please let it die.  Either that or lets
have gcc -math (for libm), gcc -standalone (libstand?) gcc -X11
(for X libraries), gcc -kde, gcc -gnome, etc.

-- 

John Baldwin <jhb at FreeBSD.org>  <><  http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/
"Power Users Use the Power to Serve!"  -  http://www.FreeBSD.org/