Bug#419467: Whoa, upstream wontfix?

[Greg Alexander <grexha@galexander.org>]

Judging by the volume of responses, I'll assume I've hit a nerve.
You all are aware that what is happening with glibc is unfriendly but
you're not sure why.

The reason why is that libc6 is not a random package which you can
individually decide to upgrade or not upgrade, it is a critical base
package which will be upgraded due to (often spurious) dependencies
from many other packages which may be desirable to upgrade.

glibc is a C library.  The job of a C library is to perform the basic
lowest-common-denominator functions in a lowest-common-denominator way.
It is bad enough that glibc contains extensive gcc-dependent code.
Worse that it contains extensive Linux-dependent code.  But tying your
most basic system library to the newest stable kernel?  Insanity.

Let's put it another way...my system has been stable for about a decade.
Most of my packages predate sarge.  Some get updated nearly yearly.
Other packages which are at the base of many dependencies, like libc6,
will get updated practically monthly.  I use Debian, and recommend it
to people, specifically because this is possible.  I am not the only one
who does so.  About the only thing which can happen to Debian to change
this fact is introducing spurious dependencies into libc6.  I assume it
is not coincidental that the libc6 package only has one depends (tzdata)
-- it is *meant to be the lowest common denominator!*

And re: xfree86...yeah, it sucks, but upgrading X has sucked for every
Debian release I've ever used.  This is acceptable because X is
"optional", but libc6 is not.  If you allow the libc6 package to become
broken in this fashion, this vital functionality of smooth upgrading
disappears forever, for all users in all instances.

Cheers,
- Greg