removal of libdhcp (and related libraries)

[David Cantrell]

It's time for libdhcp to be removed.  If you do not know what libdhcp is, read
on -or- ignore this email entirely.

HISTORY

libdhcp was originally supposed to be a replacement for libpump.  libpump was
the only thing still being built out of the pump package before libdhcp came
along.  libdhcp was to give us a library capable of DHCP and DHCPv6 as well as
manual interface configuration (which is what pump did).

What appeared instead was a library called libdhcp which called functions in
libdhcp4client (for DHCP) or libdhcp6client (for DHCPv6).  Code reuse is good,
but this combination was a bit of a hassle to deal with.

The only programs to ever use libdhcp were anaconda and nash (part of
mkinitrd).

...skip to now

anaconda is now using NetworkManager for its networking backend.  That leaves
nash as the only remaining user of libdhcp.

USERS OF LIBDHCP

I would like libdhcp to be removed as soon as possible from Fedora, which
means nash needs to use something else, perhaps this:

    http://dcantrel.fedorapeople.org/patches/mkinitrd/0001-Use-libnl-and-dhclient-in-nash-for-network-configura.patch

OBJECTIONS

If, for some bizarre reason, you are using libdhcp, libdhcp4client, or
libdhcp6client, please tell me.  For most users, I think an alternative can be
found.  For potential users where libdhcp has become absolutely mission
critical for their environment, you might be the lucky winner and be the new
libdhcp maintainer.

-- 
David Cantrell <dcantrell at redhat.com>
Red Hat / Honolulu, HI
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