Talk:packages

Lars says: a temporary solution and compromise is to forget about putting all the DSO/DLL/SO files into common system folder. Instead, ship the DLL's with the application in the same directory as the executable. I realize this defeats the purpose of libraries somewhat, but not entirely (and we need a working compromise in the meantime). For example, this allows a plugin system to work since the plugins are stored in the same directory as the program executable. So all plugins for lazarus would be stored near the lazarus.exe. Yes this means multiple copies of the RTL.dll or RTL.so on the hard drive. But most people will not be using packages - only special larger applications like lazarus will be using the RTL.dll. So having multiple copies of RTL.dll is no big deal as a temporary compromise. As a side note, what we do with Powtils/PSP is embed the DSO/DLL version number into the DLL, and any executable that tries to load the wrong DLL/DSO is simply quits with an error. The library version in Powtils/PSP is stored in an INI file and the user can specify which version to use.