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SequoiaPGP provides a C FFI interface, which can be dynamically linked against from any C-compatible language. Though safe wrappers would have to be written aro

SequoiaPGP provides a C FFI interface, which can be dynamically linked against from any C-compatible language. Though safe wrappers would have to be written around that to be able to use it from Rust, which is kind of going full circle. It'd be interesting if a Rust FFI interface could be defined (using abi_stable[0] or something). [0]: https://crates.io/crates/abi_stable https://crates.io/crates/abi_stable

arp242 5y ago
I believe git just uses the gpg commandline; in a quick grep of the source I don't see it use any GnuPG includes/functions at all (and gpg-interface.c just runs pipe_command()), but maybe I missed it.
dralley 5y ago
That's great, but it's a Rust library, which would be nice to use from Rust, without going through a C FFI layer for the sole purpose of license compliance. It feels like the Rust ecosystem is a second class citizen due to this license. The GPL or MPL would at least enforce the same rules for everyone, but the LGPL gives a relative advantage to the C and C++ ecosystem over the Rust ecosystem in terms of actually using the library.
- drran 5y ago
  Static linking good for vendor, dynamic linking good for maintainers. Some distros already made exception from "no bundled libraries" rule for Rust. Now we need to add another exception just for Rust. Maybe, it's time for Rust to catch up and implement dynamic linking instead?
  - dralley 5y ago
    Rust's support for dynamic linking is entirely unrelated to how much of a pain LGPL makes static linking.
    - mike_hock 5y ago
      But it's entirely related to how much of a pain Rust makes dynamic linking.
  - roblabla 5y ago
    Rust does support dynamic linking. But it suffers from the same issues C++ does: Code using generics will get inlined into your final binary, the ABI is unstable so you need to make sure you use the same compiler version, etc... All those can technically be worked around, but it's more work for the maintainer. Dynamic linking is actually worse for the maintainer here, as it force them to have a stable ABI, which is a lot of work!

arp242 5y ago

I believe git just uses the gpg commandline; in a quick grep of the source I don't see it use any GnuPG includes/functions at all (and gpg-interface.c just runs pipe_command()), but maybe I missed it.

dralley 5y ago

That's great, but it's a Rust library, which would be nice to use from Rust, without going through a C FFI layer for the sole purpose of license compliance. It feels like the Rust ecosystem is a second class citizen due to this license. The GPL or MPL would at least enforce the same rules for everyone, but the LGPL gives a relative advantage to the C and C++ ecosystem over the Rust ecosystem in terms of actually using the library.

drran 5y ago
Static linking good for vendor, dynamic linking good for maintainers. Some distros already made exception from "no bundled libraries" rule for Rust. Now we need to add another exception just for Rust. Maybe, it's time for Rust to catch up and implement dynamic linking instead?
- dralley 5y ago
  Rust's support for dynamic linking is entirely unrelated to how much of a pain LGPL makes static linking.
  - mike_hock 5y ago
    But it's entirely related to how much of a pain Rust makes dynamic linking.
- roblabla 5y ago
  Rust does support dynamic linking. But it suffers from the same issues C++ does: Code using generics will get inlined into your final binary, the ABI is unstable so you need to make sure you use the same compiler version, etc... All those can technically be worked around, but it's more work for the maintainer. Dynamic linking is actually worse for the maintainer here, as it force them to have a stable ABI, which is a lot of work!