[xml] Providing standard COM modules (Was: [xslt] Thread safe?)

[Daniel Veillard <veillard redhat com>]

[ 
On Mon, Apr 29, 2002 at 11:40:43AM -0600, Vakoc, Mark wrote:
> > BTW has anybody tried libxslt in a threaded envt? for
> > example embedded in a COM object?
>
> Yes.  I use libxml2/libxslt in an apartment threaded COM object (actually an
> asynchronous pluggable protocol handler for Internet Explorer).  Haven't had
> any problems as I know what the libxml2/libxslt globals are and make sure to
> wrap those with thread safe wrappers when needed.  Haven't had any thread
> related problems ever.

  Okay I think there is a need here. First I don't know the Windows platform,
Igor is the maintainer, but so far its role is limited to make sure the 
damn code compiles on Windows and packages binary ready distributions.
However, it appears to me that most of the people coding in the Windows
world expect COM (or DCOM but let's be reasonable first) packages available
to integrate a library in their development process.
  I have the horrible feeling that most of the libxml2/libxslt Windows
users did as a first step of the integration of the library in their project
a COM wrapper. And I also sense that the Right Thing to do at this point is
to try to provide a standardized COM module for those libraries.

<business_talk>
  I understand that most users in the Windows world may be on tight
and focused schedule and have hard guidelines w.r.t. sharing code or
intellectual property, but I would like to be sure you can point and
expose that sharing such work can make real business sense, remember that
user early this year developping W3C C14N abd XML DSig and who did not
share his code ? Well now Aleksey provided such an implementation, it
got integrated and is getting a lot of momentum ATM, so that early implementor
who did not share his code simply has to continue maintaining it and 
doesn't get feedback or bug fixes, or even worse at some point must 
change his code base to resuse the native code, at that point he has lost
all the code knowledge which could have been his advantage if he had been
part of the team designing the solution integrated as the default in the
library.
</business_talk>

  I don't want to frigthen or force people to work on this (just the contrary
I explicitely selected a Licence where you are guaranteeed I cannot enforce
anything on my users), but I would like the Windows users community to realize
that building and sharing a common default COM wrapper object might be
in everybody's best interest and that I would really welcome Mark, Igor and
other people in that situation to drive such an effort. Maybe I'm just
totally off-track w.r.t. what COM is or the possibility of agreeing on
a common object model, in that case feel free to hit me with your
preferred clue bat !

  The ball is in your camp ! You're not forced to play :-)

Daniel

-- 
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veillard redhat com  | libxml GNOME XML XSLT toolkit  http://xmlsoft.org/
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