Re: The fate of libc5
On Mon, Jul 10, 2000 at 02:30:54PM -0700, Shane Wegner wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 10, 2000 at 01:19:19PM -0400, Ben Collins wrote:
> > Currently libc5 is only still supported under i386 and m68k (AFAICT). It
> > hasn't been our primary libc since bo, which will be 3 releases out of
> > date when potato releases. Isn't it time to get rid of this? Are there any
> > compelling reasons to continue to have it around? I think most
> > commercial, closed-source applications for Linux now use glibc anyway, so
> > I don't see any reason at all to keep it around, except to compile all
> > those old ip exploits from rootshell.com.
> >
> > I think we should move libc5 out of woody very soon. A lot of very old
> > cruft and hacks (ldso) are still around because of this. If we can get rid
> > of libc5, ldso will become obsoleted by libc6 2.2.x (since it contains a
> > very good ldconfig and ldd, and ld-linux.so.1 wont be needed anymore). It
> > also means that nss1 compat modules will not beed needed, this again
> > reducing the amount of cruft/hacks in the default build.
> >
> > Anyone else agree, or can give a real reason why this shouldn't be the
> > case?
> Hi Ben,
>
> Though I can see why libc5 seems unnecessary and outdated, if removed, some
> users will be surprised to find nonworking binaries. A quick ldd through my
> /usr/local/bin shows several programs depending on libc5 which I couldn't
> otherwise recompile. l3enc, l3dec, mp3enc would suddenly stop working.
>
> I personally have this one program which I wrote and lost the source to.
> All I have is the libc5 binary. I wouldn't look forward to rewriting it as
> it works. In short, if keeping libc5 around is introducing problems or
> causing a lot of extra work for other developers, I guess removal would be
> viable. However, if it's self-contained and someone is willing to maintain
> it, what harm is there in leaving it in.
Well, you fail to see that removing it from woody, does not remove it from
their systems. Existing systems with the libc5 package installed will
simply notice that is marked obsolete.
--
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/ Ben Collins -- ...on that fantastic voyage... -- Debian GNU/Linux \
` bcollins@debian.org -- bcollins@openldap.org -- bcollins@linux.com '
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