Re: libmisc and applications

[morgan physics ucla edu (Andrew Morgan)]

Michael K. Johnson wrote:
> 
> 
> I've noticed that the ports of applications in the apps/ directory
> mostly use libmisc.  That doesn't make it easy to push changes back
> to original authors, and I dislike software divergence.
> 
> Why don't we make libmisc available to all applications?  Using that
> name would be inappropriate, of course, if we made it a system library;
> perhaps libpammisc or something like that would be appropriate.
> 
> Having that library available as a system library would make my work
> adding PAM support to "random" applications easier.

This is fare. Actually, it was always intended that this would be a
collection of things applications would like to use. 

The problem with putting it in a public place is that applications are
then going to become Linux specific (Sun is not offering this
library), but since the stuff in misc is (hopefully) compatable with
libpam of Sun and we are providing the source, it doesn't seem that
bad.

On a related issue (and one I've asked for before), if someone wants
to make a misc_conv function that uses xlib calls to provide a
graphical conversation function, I think this would be a really
significant contribution.

I'd like to get a new release out this week-end. Alex may have his
unix module done by then and if I can get some hardware annoyance
sorted out, I'll have a pam_time module to offer. Anyone else want me
to include something of theirs? Try to email the list/me by Friday if
there is something anyone wants included...

Regards

Andrew