Re: [bug-inetutils] [PATCH] Removing ORIGINAL_SOURCE

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   >    >    After doing this, is the function string_to_flags from
   >    >    libls/stat_flags.c still necessary? It is also not being called
   >    >    from anywhere.
   >    >
   >    >  Please don't remove it, it can be useful in the future.
   >
   >    Blech, that's an awful reason to keep something around.  If it
   >    were universally useful, it would be in some major library.
   >
   >    I'd simply say YAGNI, and get rid of any code that's not being
   >    used.  If we turn out to be wrong, that's what revision
   >    control is for.
   >
   >  I would agree with you _IFF_ the code was in a utility, the code
   >  is in a library.

   The library has no external consumers, and has no promised stable
   API/ABI.  The library argument doesn't fly.

You cannot possibly know that it isn't use externally, and even if we
do not make such promises it really doesn't matter.  In either case, I
think it is a bad idea to remove unused code for the sake of removing
it, one should only remove really dead code, and by that I mean code
that has no possible use.  The function in libls has a possible use,
the ORIGINAL_SOURCE stuff does not, since we have made many
modifications to everything, and would fail to compile as original
source anyway.

In either case, I don't care much...