Re: Y2038 - best way forward in Debian?

[Eduard Bloch <edi@gmx.de>]

Hallo,
* Steve McIntyre [Tue, Feb 04 2020, 01:14:10PM]:

>  * 32-bit ABIs/arches *can* be told to use 64-bit time_t from glibc
>    upwards, but this will of course affect the ABI. Embedded uses of
>    time_t in libraries will change size, etc. This *will* be safe for
>    2038.
>
> So, we're all fine? Not so much: for our 32-bit Debian arches, we will
> need to basically rebuild the world to be 2038-safe. When we had to do
> something like this in the past, to deal with the libc5->libc6
> transition, we had an SONAME change in libc to work with. We decided

Just thinking:

I vaguelly remember that glibc keeps collecting workarounds for replaced
APIs all the time, adjusting binary compatibility with manually
redirected symbols. Glibc folks might correct me, though.

So, wouldn't a restart of the i386 architecture under a different name
give an excelent opportunity to get rid of many of such workarounds?

Also, if the download statistics reveal the then-legacy i386
architecture becoming useless, it could be retired sooner without being
sorry.

Best regards,
Eduard.

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