[Jeetendra Singh <jeetendra_singh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Are there any plans to formalize the release of an ethereal library?
      

At some point we'd like to do that.
    

I don't :-)
It ties our hand much too tightly and for whos benefits?

I beg to differ here. Exposing well defined interfaces for (lets say) at least registering dissectors, invoking dissectors, creating filters, Ethereal control plane commands (like start/stop capture etc) and allowing receipt of captured data through an API will only allow users to put more value add. As an start, monitoring can be automated and then are are limitless possibilities.
Am not sure, whether community is stopping the users to exploit the possibilities which this great software currently provides by not exposing the usage interfaces.
Am also not sure how this ties our hands? There are still well defined interfaces for doing the above stuff as far as I know. So why not stabilize the interfaces and untie our hands :)

 IMO we might
add more applications to the ethereal source tree before we fix the
libethereal api.

Adding more application currently I presume will be more easier once proper APIs are defined and published.
And think of the other such possible applications which can be created once lib ethereal is there.
What I would rather propose here to have a clear roadmap of getting this thing done? :-)
regards,
Jeetendra