Bug#43928: libc and kernel source policy
On Tue, Oct 26, 1999 at 12:45:20PM +0100, Julian Gilbey wrote:
> This should certainly be discussed with the libc maintainers before
> making such a proposal. I am sure that they did not take the decision
> lightly.
>
> > I wish to change Debian policy regarding libc and the kernel sources.
> > The document /usr/share/doc/libc6/FAQ.Debian.gz states:
> >
> > Occasionally, changes in the kernel headers cause problems with the
> > compilation of libc and of programs that use libc. To ensure that users
> > are not affected by these problems, we configure libc to use the headers
> > from a kernel that is known to work with libc and the programs that
> > depend on stable kernel headers.
> >
> > The kernel headers don't change much these days on stable releases, yet
> > the Debian libc packages continue to carry with them full sets of kernel
> > headers (whatever somebody has _manually_ copied into place as
> > /usr/include/{linux,asm,scsi,etc} on the system building glibc).
Given that they don't change much, what is the argument against having
static ones installed with libc-dev? Your argument tends to assert that there
is actually nothing wrong with this policy. Personally, I would hope that
it always stays this way. For the non-i386 archs, it makes for much less
bug reports, and more stable/consistent builds.
Perhaps the real argument should be, to have something that allows the
users to specify their own headers without libc-dev overwriting them.
Ben
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