[Bf-committers] Policies about patches modifying third-parties libraries.

[Sybren A. Stüvel]

My mail got a response, and with that it was fairly easy to remove the
hack. The exact changes are linked from https://developer.blender.org/T80320

Sybren

On 31-08-2020 15:37, Sybren A. Stüvel via Bf-committers wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I agree with Bastien, and have sent an email to the USD Interest group,
> with a CC on
> https://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-usd/2020-August/000014.html.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Sybren
>
>
> On 25-08-2020 21:05, Bastien Montagne via Bf-committers wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Under build_files/build_environment/patches we have a bunch of small
>> patches for the libraries we build using make deps. Most of them are
>> about fixing builds for some platform or architecture, which is a bit
>> annoying but acceptable imho.
>>
>> However, today I discovered that Blender cannot be built with vanilla
>> USD library, at all. The patch used on this library adds some new
>> function to its API, which (hack over hack) is not even declared in
>> its headers, but in Blender code itself.
>>
>> I would very much like to propose to strictly forbid such dirty
>> practices, which violate completely the very idea of libraries,
>> especially on OSs like linux, where distributions try very hard to
>> only use dynamically linked shared libraries.
>>
>> Any library that would need that kind of modifications should be put
>> in extern/, and explicitly built as part of Blender itself. Or at the
>> very least, we should explicitly maintain our own 'fork' of it, with
>> requests to the main repo/maintainers to integrate our changes or
>> otherwise propose a solution to the problem.
>>
>> But I do hope there are ways to avoid such ugly changes anyway?
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Bastien
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Bf-committers mailing list
>> Bf-committers at blender.org
>> https://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers

-- 
dr. Sybren A. Stüvel

Blender Software Developer

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