No GnuPG library for now

[Werner Koch]

On Thu, 19 Oct 2000, Taral wrote:

> I find that a very short-sighted view. gnupg is _not_ small and will

Right it is already too large and I am going to address this in gpg
1.1.

> The reason that Mozilla and Evolution are hard to build is because they
> tried to put too much functionality into one program. I just want to
> provide _small_ programs which provide variant functionality similar to

I can't agree.  At least from my experience with Evolution, the
problem is that there are so many libaraiers and interfaces and
everything depends on each other - which is good of course.  As
long as those interfaces are not yet frozen and stable it is
complicated to build the thing.  Frankly, it is not complicated, but
you need to do many, many cvs updates, and build in the right order.

> For example, I'd like to make a small program which enables me to edit
> PGP files in a more advanced manner -- adding/removing subpackets,

There is always the source code.  gpg 1.1 will make the interfaces
more modular.

> * List all functionality in the system
> * Partition the system into modules
> * Define the exposed part of each module
> * Define the inter-module dependencies
> * Create the API for the modules

That is a lot of work and I prefer to invest the time in auditing and
making the code cleaner.

Eventually, the packet handling code etc, will be separated and that
means that it can be put into a library you can grab.


  Werner

-- 
Werner Koch				GnuPG key:  621CC013
OpenIT GmbH                             http://www.OpenIT.de