[parted-devel] [Parted-edge] [RFC][PATCH] Remove alloca from libparted/arch/linux.c

[Jim Meyering]

Otavio Salvador <otavio at debian.org> wrote:

> Jim Meyering <jim at meyering.net> writes:
>
>> IMHO, when something exceptional happens in a library, the
>> affected function should simply return with an indication of
>> what went wrong.  Unfortunately, making this particular
>> library clean would be a big and risky task.
>
> Yes, I now agree with you.
>
> But Jim, if this is the right thing to do we ought start doing it now
> since we can break API (on master).
>
> Obviously that we're going to need a lot of testing and like but I
> can't think in a better time for it.

Most volunteers aren't interested in working on fixing an interface or
an entire library/application just because it's ugly and unmaintainable --
besides, as people tend to say, "it already works, so why bother?".
Of course, I think it's worth fixing, but I don't have much time for
parted these days.

Doing such clean-up work is hard, not "sexy", and largely thankless.
It'd be great to find qualified people to work on it.