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117 lines
4.8 KiB
117 lines
4.8 KiB
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FAQ |
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#### What's the license? |
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These libraries are in the public domain. You can do anything you |
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want with them. You have no legal obligation |
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to do anything else, although I appreciate attribution. |
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They are also licensed under the MIT open source license, if you have lawyers |
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who are unhappy with public domain. Every source file includes an explicit |
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dual-license for you to choose from. |
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#### <a name="other_libs"></a> Are there other single-file public-domain/open source libraries with minimal dependencies out there? |
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[Yes.](https://github.com/nothings/single_file_libs) |
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#### If I wrap an stb library in a new library, does the new library have to be public domain/MIT? |
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No, because it's public domain you can freely relicense it to whatever license your new |
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library wants to be. |
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#### What's the deal with SSE support in GCC-based compilers? |
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stb_image will either use SSE2 (if you compile with -msse2) or |
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will not use any SIMD at all, rather than trying to detect the |
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processor at runtime and handle it correctly. As I understand it, |
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the approved path in GCC for runtime-detection require |
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you to use multiple source files, one for each CPU configuration. |
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Because stb_image is a header-file library that compiles in only |
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one source file, there's no approved way to build both an |
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SSE-enabled and a non-SSE-enabled variation. |
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While we've tried to work around it, we've had multiple issues over |
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the years due to specific versions of gcc breaking what we're doing, |
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so we've given up on it. See https://github.com/nothings/stb/issues/280 |
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and https://github.com/nothings/stb/issues/410 for examples. |
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#### Some of these libraries seem redundant to existing open source libraries. Are they better somehow? |
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Generally they're only better in that they're easier to integrate, |
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easier to use, and easier to release (single file; good API; no |
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attribution requirement). They may be less featureful, slower, |
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and/or use more memory. If you're already using an equivalent |
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library, there's probably no good reason to switch. |
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#### Can I link directly to the table of stb libraries? |
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You can use [this URL](https://github.com/nothings/stb#stb_libs) to link directly to that list. |
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#### Why do you list "lines of code"? It's a terrible metric. |
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Just to give you some idea of the internal complexity of the library, |
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to help you manage your expectations, or to let you know what you're |
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getting into. While not all the libraries are written in the same |
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style, they're certainly similar styles, and so comparisons between |
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the libraries are probably still meaningful. |
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Note though that the lines do include both the implementation, the |
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part that corresponds to a header file, and the documentation. |
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#### Why single-file headers? |
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Windows doesn't have standard directories where libraries |
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live. That makes deploying libraries in Windows a lot more |
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painful than open source developers on Unix-derivates generally |
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realize. (It also makes library dependencies a lot worse in Windows.) |
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There's also a common problem in Windows where a library was built |
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against a different version of the runtime library, which causes |
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link conflicts and confusion. Shipping the libs as headers means |
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you normally just compile them straight into your project without |
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making libraries, thus sidestepping that problem. |
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Making them a single file makes it very easy to just |
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drop them into a project that needs them. (Of course you can |
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still put them in a proper shared library tree if you want.) |
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Why not two files, one a header and one an implementation? |
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The difference between 10 files and 9 files is not a big deal, |
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but the difference between 2 files and 1 file is a big deal. |
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You don't need to zip or tar the files up, you don't have to |
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remember to attach *two* files, etc. |
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#### Why "stb"? Is this something to do with Set-Top Boxes? |
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No, they are just the initials for my name, Sean T. Barrett. |
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This was not chosen out of egomania, but as a moderately sane |
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way of namespacing the filenames and source function names. |
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#### Will you add more image types to stb_image.h? |
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No. As stb_image use has grown, it has become more important |
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for us to focus on security of the codebase. Adding new image |
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formats increases the amount of code we need to secure, so it |
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is no longer worth adding new formats. |
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#### Do you have any advice on how to create my own single-file library? |
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Yes. https://github.com/nothings/stb/blob/master/docs/stb_howto.txt |
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#### Why public domain? |
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I prefer it over GPL, LGPL, BSD, zlib, etc. for many reasons. |
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Some of them are listed here: |
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https://github.com/nothings/stb/blob/master/docs/why_public_domain.md |
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#### Why C? |
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Primarily, because I use C, not C++. But it does also make it easier |
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for other people to use them from other languages. |
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#### Why not C99? stdint.h, declare-anywhere, etc. |
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I still use MSVC 6 (1998) as my IDE because it has better human factors |
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for me than later versions of MSVC.
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