On Fri, 08 Jan 2010 15:43:52 -0500, micah anderson <micah@riseup.net> wrote:
> Its good that this is not a burden to maintain for the notmuch project,
> even better that Mikhail, the libsha1 maintainer, is currently active in
> this project and has volunteered to maintain the in-tree copy. 
> 
> However, the problem that has been raised is about the code-maintenance
> burden that distributions face. In fact, this is not an unique problem
> to notmuch, if it was it wouldn't be such a big deal. The reality is
> that the more projects which cargo-cult around 'convenience copies' of
> code, the more of a burden is placed on the distributors.
> 
> In some ways, the notmuch project and the role of distributors are at
> cross-purposes on this issue, each side has an argument that makes sense
> From their individual perspectives.

Well, I think it's important for notmuch to ease the burden on the
distribution as well. That's just a matter of being a good citizen.

If notmuch were including code that existed as a library package in
Debian, say. Then that would definitely be problematic, and notmuch
should be fixed to link with the library.

We could get to that point if someone wanted to package libsha1, say.

> > What might make more sense is an option to compile against an existing
> > library (if present) but not to introduce an error in the build if the
> > library is not present, (in which case just build the builtin libsha1.c
> > code).
> 
> This makes the most sense, and resolves the issue in a way that both
> sides of the issue benefit!

I'd be glad to see a patch that does that.

-Carl