Re: libxml bundling

I do not believe we should bundle libxml with PHP for a number of reasons. First of all libxml2 is a frequently updated package, much more so then PHP, so in most cases it can go through 4-5 bug fixing revisions prior to a single PHP release and sometimes more (if 4.3.0 release cycle is to be considered). This means that the user who is using the bundled library will not have the benefit of the fixes implemented by libxml developers until the next PHP release, which could be months off. It would also mean someone would have the unwelcome task of syncronizing bundled libxml with latest stable libxml every month and sometimes more often then that. As common and as useful libxml is, most php applications do not need. Compiling it by default makes a whole lot more impact on the PHP memory usage in web enviroment. However, if I force it to use my native libxml2 the difference is quite the opposite and I in fact gain from using an external library rather then bundled expat. libxml is also a very common library, nearly all OSS distributions already come with a libxml2/libxslt installed and are usually rather promt about offering new rpms, debs, etc... This means that installing the library if you do not have it already, would be of very little effort to even a novice admin. For Win32 users we distribute pre-built packages, so in that case we could/should bundle compiled libxml. Ilia