From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.3 (2006-06-01) on yquem.inria.fr X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.0 required=5.0 tests=none autolearn=disabled version=3.1.3 Received: from mail1-relais-roc.national.inria.fr (mail1-relais-roc.national.inria.fr [192.134.164.82]) by yquem.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id B1340BC69 for ; Thu, 22 Nov 2007 10:42:10 +0100 (CET) X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AgAAAL7dREfAXQImh2dsb2JhbACBW41VAQgKKQ X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.21,450,1188770400"; d="scan'208";a="4776917" Received: from discorde.inria.fr ([192.93.2.38]) by mail1-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr with ESMTP; 22 Nov 2007 10:42:10 +0100 Received: from mail3-relais-sop.national.inria.fr (mail3-relais-sop.national.inria.fr [192.134.164.104]) by discorde.inria.fr (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id lAM9gAGF020059 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-SHA bits=128 verify=OK) for ; Thu, 22 Nov 2007 10:42:10 +0100 X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AgAAAC/eREeCiAFllWdsb2JhbACBW41VAQEHCik X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.21,450,1188770400"; d="scan'208";a="6065329" Received: from lea.cs.unibo.it ([130.136.1.101]) by mail3-smtp-sop.national.inria.fr with ESMTP; 22 Nov 2007 10:42:09 +0100 Received: from aquarium.takhisis.invalid (dotto.cs.unibo.it [130.136.4.180]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by lea.cs.unibo.it (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6A5241A2DD for ; Thu, 22 Nov 2007 10:42:09 +0100 (CET) Received: by aquarium.takhisis.invalid (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 933D01254D2; Thu, 22 Nov 2007 10:42:07 +0100 (CET) Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2007 10:42:07 +0100 From: Stefano Zacchiroli To: Inria Ocaml Mailing List Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Camlp5 release 5.03 Message-ID: <20071122094207.GC27809@takhisis.invalid> Mail-Followup-To: Inria Ocaml Mailing List References: <20071120095222.GA12460@yquem.inria.fr> <200711211801.08746.jon@ffconsultancy.com> <20071121191006.GA31390@furbychan.cocan.org> <200711212010.13529.jon@ffconsultancy.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <200711212010.13529.jon@ffconsultancy.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.17 (2007-11-01) X-Miltered: at discorde with ID 47454EF2.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail . ensmp . fr)! X-Spam: no; 0.00; zacchiroli:01 zack:01 camlp:01 distros:01 ocaml:01 stdlib:01 ocaml:01 bug:01 cheers:01 zacchiroli:01 zack:01 unibo:01 5.03:98 ubuntu:98 strive:98 On Wed, Nov 21, 2007 at 08:10:13PM +0000, Jon Harrop wrote: > For me, this begs the obvious question: can the distros split off the OCaml > stdlib into a separate package so the community can improve it and > Debian/Ubuntu/Red Hat/Mac OS X/.. users can benefit from an improved version? Yes, they can, but as a Debian OCaml maintainer I wouldn't do that. Part of the reason is shared with Richard's. Patches applied by distributors are of two kinds: distribution-specific, bug fixes/improvements. The latter kind of patches are reasonable only if there is some hope to have them integrated "upstream" (i.e. in the official OCaml distribution), otherwise they are only additional work to be maintained in the future and can create serious issues for our users. Since we know that OCaml upstream does not welcome changes to the standard library we simply are not encouraged to make changes there. The only way to go IMO is extlib, which should strive to merge with other extended standard libraries project, and hope to reach a big user base to "negotiate" something with OCaml upstream. Cheers. -- Stefano Zacchiroli -*- PhD in Computer Science ............... now what? zack@{cs.unibo.it,debian.org,bononia.it} -%- http://www.bononia.it/zack/ (15:56:48) Zack: e la demo dema ? /\ All one has to do is hit the (15:57:15) Bac: no, la demo scema \/ right keys at the right time