Re: gettext 0.10.37 msgfmt charset naming compatibility on Solaris 8

[Paul Eggert]

> From: Ulrich Drepper <address@hidden>
> Date: 15 May 2001 18:18:48 -0700
> 
> And so everybody with another broken platform will come and wants to
> have their junk supported as well?

But GNU libiconv does not support all the codesets that the native
iconv implementations do, so it is not always adequate.  It is
unrealistic to expect GNU libiconv to support every encoding that
every proprietary system supports, consistently with the way that the
proprietary system works.  In some cases it is simpler just to use the
native codesets.

Also, the patch is generic, and (looking at the source code) I see
that it also fixes things for native iconv on AIX, HP-UX, IRIX, and
OSF.  So it is not just Solaris we're talking about.

If the patch is simple and straightforward and does not hurt existing
behavior, as is true in this case, it does little harm to accept it.
It furthers the cause of glibc to have glibc be a good neighbor.

On the other hand, if there's something wrong with the patch, or a way
that I can improve it to make it acceptable to you, please let me know
so that I can fix it.

> Such an approach will never work for everybody and therefore should
> not even be tried.

It is impossible to write code that will work for _everybody_.
Even GNU libiconv, as good as it is, does not do that.
However, it is helpful to improve code so that it works for more people.