Re: [Evolution-hackers] building evolution-data-server against the already installed libdb

["Peter Colijn" <pcolijn gmail com>]

On 3/6/06, Mikhail Zabaluev <mhz altlinux org> wrote:
> I used to compile e-d-s 1.4 along an external db4.3, by applying a
> simple patch. It didn't seem to cause any problems.

You are of course free to apply your own patches; however, in the long
term, using a distribution's version of bdb will probably be an
intolerable maintenance burden for either distributors or evolution:

> So, what's the purpose of bundling an obsolete version of Berkeley DB
> inside the project?

I think the idea was that since the berkeley db API is not very
stable, and since distributions ship a wide variety of versions of
berkeley db, it would be simpler to ship a version of bdb along with
evolution to avoid either

(1) requiring distributions wishing to ship evolution to either ship a
special bdb just for it, or patch evolution on their own (a big
maintenance burden for distributors)

or

(2) requiring evolution to be compatible against multiple versions of
bdb (a big maintenance burden for evolution)

Maybe the bdb API is more stable these days so this no longer makes
sense; I was under the impression it was still changing quite often.

Have fun,

Peter