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Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 21:34:37 +0100
From: Thiemo Seufer <ths@networkno.de>
Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] [6064] Implement device tree support needed for
	Bamboo emulation
Message-ID: <20081216203437.GA16415@networkno.de>
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To: Paul Brook <paul@codesourcery.com>
Cc: Aurelien Jarno <aurelien@aurel32.net>, qemu-devel@nongnu.org

Paul Brook wrote:
> On Tuesday 16 December 2008, Anthony Liguori wrote:
> > Hollis Blanchard wrote:
> > > If you'd prefer to make libfdt mandatory, I'm fine with that.
> >
> > No, it shouldn't be mandatory :-)
> >
> > >>> This patch introduces a dependency on libfdt for flat device tree
> > >>> support.
> > >>
> > >> I don't like the way this is done.
> > >>
> > >> AFAIK libfdt isn't present in any of the major distros. I thought the
> > >> conclusion was that we should import libfdt into qemu.
> > >
> > > That was our conclusion, but Anthony never agreed.
> >
> > Because it's better to let the distros maintain this.   That way, they
> > can deal with security issues, etc.
> 
> That's fine in theory. In practice it means we can't realistically use libfdt 
> for anything important for at least another 12 months or so. I'm also rather 
> sceptical about the stability of the libfdt API.

An approach commonly taken is to try to link against a system-provided
(dynamic) library, and fall back to the in-tree version if this fails.
(This assumes a system will only provide libfdt once its API/ABI is
stable enough.)


Thiemo