There's a rather big discussion on php-dev (again..), if libxml2 should be bundled or not with PHP5 itself. Sterling did put the whole libxml2 source code (which is approx 3 MB large) into PHP CVS, which not everyone was happy about it and one of those infamous big discussions on php-dev started. There are a lot of reasons against bundling and a lot of for bundling.
Me personally isn't in favour of bundling, but I can live with it as long as:
- The libxml2 sources are not in PHP CVS, but added .tgz to the downloads afterwards. I don't want a different libxml2 version than the official one. If libxml2 is in CVS, the chances are high, that someone patches something in there and doesn't give it back to the original author. From this moment on, we're in upgrade-hell and I'd really
like to avoid that
- The bundled libxml2 sources are recent enough. There's more than one new libxml2 release per month, with feature enhancements and bugfixes. Someone from the PHP team has to take care of updating the bundled libxml2 sources regularly.
- It's easy possible to use an already installed libxml2 library. Just a matter of the correct configure script, shouldn't be a big deal, but the different xml-extensions have to take care of it
Just my 2 cents (once more) and BTW, the new XML stuff for PHP5 is coming along nicely. Watch this space for more information