Re: libtool questions

[Nicola Pero]

> I've noticed that libtool is used in the OpenStep 4.x target for making 
> shared libraries, but libtool is not used for any other system targets. 
>  Is there a reason for this?  In other words, is this a planned 
> decision, or has libtool support just not been added to the other system 
> targets?

I don't think it's a planned decision - perhaps when people started to
write gnustep-make (I think in 1997), libtool was not yet so
popular/known.  The other reason is that we can actually do without :-)

We might switch to using libtool if that proves to give us considerable
benefits compared to the evils - otherwise we'll stay with our standard
linking procedure.  I'm not actually sure what we would gain by using
libtool - except perhaps easier portability to new platforms, with the
downside that people would need to have libtool installed, and we would
need to fit libtool's peculiarities inside gnustep-make's peculiarities,
which might be very annoying.

In general I think that we won't switch to using libtool unless we are
forced to.  If you have good reasons why we should be, let us know.