Heimdal/MIT API convergence

[Darren Reed (Optimation)]

From: "Sam Hartman" <hartmans at mit.edu>
> >>>>> "Jason" == Jason Garman <jgarman at wedgie.org> writes:
> 
>     Jason> (Somewhat off topic...) Personally, I'd like to see better
>     Jason> coordination between MIT and the Heimdal group on APIs,
>     Jason> since its annoying to constantly encounter software that
>     Jason> will compile with one and not the other.  There's also a
>     Jason> few instances where error messages from the KDC on one will
>     Jason> be misinterpreted by libraries for the other.
> I think that for future development you're likely to see this;
> certainly when adding functionality to MIT Kerberos I do look at
> whether Heimdal already has an API and consider whether adoption of
> that API would be a good idea.
> 
> We'd like to actually work on API unification; the Heimdal developers
> have expressed a desire to do this in the past as well.
> 
> Neither team really has time for this.  Also, the developers working
> on the different products seem to have a different idea about what the
> API should feel like in certain areas.  There are several cases where
> Heimdal has added helper APIs that perform the functions of multiple
> MIT APIs; in some cases I'm not really I see the justification as
> worth the divergence.

As someone who's written Kerberos applications against a vendor's
library and then had to port them to MIT Kerberos, I will say that
anything you can do to in the area of helper APIs would be greatly
appreciated - especially for changing passwords and related work!

> But if someone wanted to throw resources (qualified developer time
> would be more useful than money) at the problem, you would likely see
> progress.

Do you have a short list of things of things that you feel need attention?

Darren