@bernd
I think the problem here is one of perspective. This discussion is a wasps nest, but I'll still try to venture an opinion here.
Perhaps it is so that you persive ixemul as an application, it seems so to me as you persive the code from a users perspective.
This is not a bad thing, but we also try to think architecture. One thing we then should think of is separation of concerns.
Ixemul is a common module, component aka library. It has an API with a defined behaviour. Even if this behaviour is bad, or allows clients (applications) to behave badly, it should not be ixemuls concern.
It gets messy. Even though the intentions of changeing the behaviour is good, the concequences might be very messy.
The Apache example is a good example because it's not a user program. It's a webserver which won't have a user infront of a desktop at all times. It will for exaple run headless (no monitor/screen attatched) on a computer, and when it crashes will be autorestarted by a script or other admin tools. It's up to the admin to setup and configure such a system. If a library then start dioing GUI requesters, the admin gets unexpected behaviour, and the server cannot recover by its self. There are many readily made scripts for apache and other server tools which does this, they don't know or have any way of muting such a requester.
My preference both as a user and potential developer for amiga would be a separate patch to ixemul, which could intercept "return 0" from malloc and treat the incident based on blacklists and whitelists. A good separation of concerns, and ixemul behaves according to it's API contract.
I really applaude you bernd for your efforts for 68k amiga, and it's rare that programmers are good enough to see their programs from an end users perspective. This is a good trait of yours.
I understand your reluctance to change your code. It apparently works. But it's obviously creating some problems for others.
It does seem like the critisism you've received is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, and both sides here needs to take a breather and think a bit about how they address the other part. Both sides have not used a respectfull tone at all times, however it's apparent that you've tried to excercise restraint :-)
A problem here is obvious that language is a barrier, you are talking past eachother. Now just stop for a moment, and try to see if there is a middle ground.
All of this isn't only addressed to you bernd. Hence the kettle and pot comment as the malloc issue just seem to be one of the many issues beihg discussed here (version number, name and expanded functionality).
