X-Git-Url: http://erislabs.net/gitweb/?a=blobdiff_plain;f=doc%2Fgnulib-intro.texi;h=09ac675eeacdfb800f1153343f0cdb1d92b0ace4;hb=b886ebac9e37729d68e765b141b099ec5b24ab2c;hp=169ca80547324c38f70c4315dc277091c03660d0;hpb=106d3ad905054693a6e424305167452bbaa49f87;p=gnulib.git

diff --git a/doc/gnulib-intro.texi b/doc/gnulib-intro.texi
index 169ca8054..09ac675ee 100644
--- a/doc/gnulib-intro.texi
+++ b/doc/gnulib-intro.texi
@@ -1,3 +1,37 @@
+@node Benefits
+@section Benefits of using Gnulib
+
+Gnulib is useful to enhance various aspects of a package:
+
+@itemize @bullet
+@item
+Portability: With Gnulib, a package maintainer can program against the
+POSIX and GNU libc APIs and nevertheless expect good portability to
+platforms that don't implement POSIX.
+
+@item
+Maintainability: When a package uses modules from Gnulib instead of code
+written specifically for that package, the maintainer has less code to
+maintain.
+
+@item
+Security: Gnulib provides functions that are immune against vulnerabilities
+that plague the uses of the corresponding commonplace functions. For
+example, @code{asprintf}, @code{canonicalize_file_name} are not affected
+by buffer sizing problems that affect @code{sprintf}, @code{realpath}.
+@code{openat} does not have the race conditions that @code{open} has. Etc.
+
+@item
+Reliability: Gnulib provides functions that combine a call to a system
+function with a check of the result. Examples are @code{xalloc},
+@code{xprintf}, @code{xstrtod}, @code{xgetcwd}.
+
+@item
+Structure: Gnulib offers a way to structure code into modules, typically
+one include file, one source code file, and one autoconf macro for each
+functionality. Modularity helps maintainability.
+@end itemize
+
 @node Library vs Reusable Code
 @section Library vs. Reusable Code
 
@@ -250,7 +284,7 @@ not a problem, since compiled tests are not installed by ``make install''.
 Documentation files are under this copyright:
 
 @quotation
-Copyright @copyright{} 2004-2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.@*
+Copyright @copyright{} 2004-200Y Free Software Foundation, Inc.@*
 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or
 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no