[pombreda]

You wrote:

> So to the more knowledgeable people out there, what is the PURL way of identifying a C++ library like that?

That's a blind spot. This is a real problem for every as you rightfully explained.

So I have been thinking a lot about how to track C/C++ native libraries, and I have been working on a plan to deal with this.

You can read a summary there (that I just posted to supply this discussion!) - https://github.com/aboutcode-org/www.aboutcode.org/issues/30

And this comment links to more detailed work-in-progress planning doc: - https://github.com/aboutcode-org/www.aboutcode.org/issues/30...

If you want to chip in and help, this would be awesome.

And IMHO, aligned with your thinking this should not be tied to a build system or a for-profit operation like conan.io, or a linux distro, or for that matter a specific build tool or approach as they are so many, and be self-hosted, easy to sync, and simple to store in a git repo.

[alcroito]

Thanks for the links! I hope the proposal works out. I skimmed through the doc, and one thing i’d suggest is to consider using the CPS format rather than the ABOUT one for the metadata. The format is driven by Kitware, the developers of cmake, and thus if it’s contributed to them, a big chunk of the cpp ecosystem would get buy-in just because of the intertia of using cmake, and getting it for free with the tool.

https://cps-org.github.io/cps/overview.html

I’m not sure how I can help, but I’m open for discussion, because the company i work for is also interested in how to handle this well for our products.

[pombreda]

let's chat. There is a really a lot of folks interesting because of the suffering! ABOUT is just a suggestion, and an TIL about cps and it looks awesome! [e-mail] Or a comment on the issue or doc linked.