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From: sja@sirius.hut.fi (Sakari Jalovaara)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.sun,comp.windows.news
Subject: Re: Using X11R4 with OpenWindows 2.0
Message-ID: <1990Sep25.122429.4679@santra.uucp>
Date: 25 Sep 90 13:23:51 GMT
References: <1990Sep13.162748@sarek.Berkeley.EDU>
	<KS.90Sep14110919@karikukko.tut.fi> <9195@rosevax.Rosemount.COM>
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Organization: Helsinki University of X-nology
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In-Reply-To: dan@scooter.rosemount.com's message of 24 Sep 90 21:28:40 GMT

[Thread started in alt.sys.sun.]

> I have the X11r4 shared libraries in /usr/lib, and LD_LIBRARY_PATH set to
> "/usr/openwin/lib:/usr/lib".

This works - but I'd rather not do it because if I then compile an X
program that program will want the non-standard OW versions of the X
libraries (I assume Sun/AT&T/whoever changed libX11 instead of
changing the library revision number just for fun.)  My programs might
end up relying on those changes.  They wouldn't benefit from the
latest MIT public patches.  Also, I'd have to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH on
remote machines to run OW programs remotely - and I'd have to coax all
users to do that too.  No way.

I'm tempted to throw the OW libXt and libX11 away and install the
other OW libraries in /lib.  I see two problems:

	Whenever someone runs an OW program it will bitch about old
	library versions.  Maybe I'll end up binary-patching the
	library version number in all OW programs.  (I don't want to
	install the real MIT libraries with newer revision numbers,
	that would just move the problem elsewhere.)

	Some programs may depend on Sun's/AT&T's changes in the OW
	libXt and libX11.  If this becomes a serious problem, I'll
	recommend that no-one here use those programs - or the entire
	OW.  Sun shouldn't give "standard" names to non-standard
	libraries.

I installed OW last week but I haven't yet told the users it is there
because I want to solve this library problem first.

(Real solution?  Sun should use the standard MIT X libraries and, if
they need fixing, give those fixes to MIT.  Until that, I'll consider
OpenWindows a beta-test curiosity that can't live with the rest of the
system.  Too bad, NeWS seems really nice.)

++
Private opinions - $0.02 each - hand-picked this morning.		++sja