Should I force the sourcecode to use system library? (was Fwd: [Bug 195558] Re: brl-cad 7.10.4)

[Emmet Hikory]

Kai-Cheung Leung wrote:
>  I plan to package brlcad-7.12.2.  I've looked at the source code.
>  However it has bundled with a number of external libraries in src/other/
>
>  which some do not have existing Ubuntu packages, such as openNURBS.
>
>  When I package brlcad, should I leave the default setting of the source
>  code alone and let it use the internal library code or should I package
>  all the libraries and fiddle with debian/RULE to make the make file use
>  the system library?

    Where possible, it is significantly better to use the packaged
libraries, as otherwise it reuires significantly greater resources by
the securtiy and stable updates teams to ensure that bugs fixed in the
library are also fixed in the package.

    That said, sometimes there are embedded libraries for which there
is no current package.  In these cases, I would recommend packaging
the library first, and then the application.

    Note also that some in-tree third-party libraries carry patches
different than those int he packaged library, which can be
incompatible.  Where possible, it's best to try to merge (often
working with upstreams), but where impossible, using the in-tree
library can be done.

-- 
Emmet HIKORY