Ysgrifennodd kevin@seti-inst.edu ar Sun, Mar 21, 1999 at 05:48:46PM +0000: > John Lines <john@paladin.demon.co.uk> suggested placing a wrapper > around the programs in our distribution which do not work with the new > libraries. This only works if no Debian user complains its own > programs. Since our system allows users to compile our own programs, > we must ensure true compatibility, or change the soname. There is not > another choice. As I see it, the two kinds of programs that break with the new glibc are a) programs that are binary only, and cannot be fixed to use the new ways of doing things (eg jdk), and b) programs that are free, but cannot/have not been modified to do things 'correctly' (eg libtricks). The problem of users compiling their own programs does not affect the first, obviously. The second, these programs will either work, or won't work. I don't see that where they are compiled makes a difference. Once everything has been compiled with glibc 2.1, then free programs will work (hopefully), and the non-free programs will have to be fixed by their authors. I do not think that non-free programs should affect our decision about this too much. I think the idea of having a copy of the old glibc, and having a wrapper that links old programs against it before running then, is a bad idea. What happenes when the next incompatable version comes out? Will we have innumerable copies of glibc lying around, for every program that uses them? Programs that do not work with glibc 2.1 should be fixed or removed. This is the only way forward. Changing the soname is also an option, but I think this should only be considered if the other major Linux distributions (and perhaps the glibc people) are doing this as well. Binary incompatability between distributions would be bad. Diolch, Edward.
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