Dynamic libmap.so

[Daniel Morissette]

Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> 
> I will say the "shared" target was added as a low-disruption way of my
> supporting my desire for FWTools on linux to use a libmap.so without 
> screwing
> up the normal builds.  I wouldn't mind moving to always using libmap.so
> myself, but it would mean that installing "mapserv" wouldn't be quite as
> trivial in some cases.
> 

I agree that static linking makes it easier to deploy binaries, that's 
the main reason why I never really bothered with libmap.so. Since we 
typically use only one flavour of MapServer on a given system, either 
mapserv CGI and/or one of the MapScripts, and very rarely deploy 
multiple programs using libmap.so the benefit of a shared lib is reduced.

I'm not saying there are no benefits, just that there were not enough 
for us to care much in the past. If we had a stable C API then we'd 
definitely want to do a better job with a shared lib.

> PS. libmap.so isn't really a very unique name.  We might contemplate 
> something
> a bit less likely to conflict with other packages.
> 

Agreed. libmapserver.so?

Daniel
-- 
Daniel Morissette
http://www.mapgears.com/