Re: libguile and readline

[Jim Blandy <jimb@red-bean.com>]

> Do programs that link with libguile _really_ need libreadline?
> Isn't that bloat? Doesn't it add a problem to the fact that
> libguile is GPL? AFAICS, if libguile links with readline then it
> can't be LGPLed.

The license issue is a good point, which I had missed.  Thank you for
pointing that out.  Here's what I've done (from guile-core/NEWS):


** The configure script now accepts a --with-readline flag.

By default, Guile includes support for the readline line-editing
library, if a sufficiently recent version of the library is installed
on your system.

If you do not want readline included in Guile, pass the following flag
to the configure script:

  --with-readline=no

You may not want to configure Guile to use readline if you are unable
to release your program under the GNU General Public License; the
readline library is released under the GPL, so anything linked with it
must also be distributed under the GPL.

Enabling readline support does not significantly increase the size of
the Guile library.  Readline itself is a shared library on most
systems, and the readline interface code in Guile is less than 3
kilobytes long.

In future releases of Guile, we hope to have the readline support
linked into Guile dynamically, if and when you use it.  This would
make this configuration option unnecessary; the same Guile library
could be used both with and without the readline library.