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Debian Switching From Glibc To Eglibc
ceswiedler writes "Aurelien Jarno has just uploaded a fork of glibc called eglibc, which is targeted at embedded systems and is source- and binary-compatible with glibc. It has a few nice improvements over glibc, but the primary motivation seems to be that it's a 'more friendly upstream project' than glibc. Glibc's maintainer, Ulrich Drepper, has had a contentious relationship with Debian's project leadership; in 2007 the Debian Project Leader sent an email criticizing Drepper for refusing to fix a bug on glibc on the ARM architecture because in Drepper's words it was 'for the sole benefit of this embedded crap.'"
It might be "Egier" to use, but how far will it stray from the original project (that everyone else is currently using), or is it the first leak in the Dam before everyone jumps ship.
Its especially ironic given the push that netbooks have had over the past year, and the emphasis on Power savings that is pushing developers to consider using ARM chips, and by extension Linux (since Windows just plain won't run on them :) ).
If the OSS community doesn't support an opportunity to get our foot in the door (in a BIG way), by putting "our" OS on the "longest running and lightest" Netbooks/Notebooks that come out (or put our software out with known bugs), then we deserve to reap what we sow.
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uClibc is created for embedded systems, meaning that it might lack some of the features that glibc has. Debian doesn't work only on embedded systems, and therefore it needs a full libc with all bells and whistles. eglibc is a glibc fork, which might be targetting embedded systems, but retains full source and binary compatibility with glibc, and I would assume that any useful feature would still be there, possibly optional.
And they switch not because they want lightweight libc, but because they want more friendly upstream. uClibc doesn't seem to be a good choice if that is the reason.
Speaking as a Debian user who has had some major upgrade problems directly caused by glibc, anything that's "more upstream friendly" is okay by me.
I don't think this means "easy to upgrade", but rather "the maintainer isn't an asshole".
The code hit an assert() in glibc. That is per definition a bug. You should never implement an assertion and then complain if someone hits it and confronts you with the design choices of that time. When you are informed of a triggered assert(), then you should act like a man and fix the code.
Reading the context didn't help his case any. I read the bug report, and the attached patch, and was appalled that Ulrich thought he was defending good code. If the code is expected to run on even ONE other platform, what he was doing was incredibly stupid. It doesn't matter if the vocal constituency is on a platform that doesn't please Ulric. There is more than one officially supported platform, so therefore his opinion was idiocy of the highest order.
Anybody who thinks it's a good idea to depend on the size of structure padding, on one specific platform, with one specific compiler, and code a memory violation on that expectation, deserves all the vitriol the community can muster. Take his compiler away from him. He's not fit to write C.
And the developer has every right to make that call
Who said or implied otherwise in any way shape or form? Seriously.
Getting in a pissing match over support for an irrelevant feature doesn't inspire me with confidence in Debian's leaders.
But ARM is a supported architecture, used enough at least that they found the bug, and the bug was in glibc and thus affects all distributions that use glibc. What would make me lose confidence in Debian's leaders is if they agreed that because it's an "irrelevant" architecture that it shouldn't be fixed.
And just because the bug in question may be "irrelevant" for Debian, the real issue they're getting in a pissing match over is an obstinant maintainer of one of the most important pieces of software in any linux distro. Switching to a libc with a friendlier upstream maintainer over an irrelevant bug makes a hell of a lot more sense than waiting until it's a critically important bug that the current guy decides he won't fix for some stupid reason, now doesn't it?
The enemies of Democracy are
Drepper has had this coming for many, MANY years.
Frankly, I'd say Ulrich is fitting person for a project like glibc.
I do not think his a bad guy, it's just a job of glibc maintainer (which is a central piece of "Linux OS", second most important after kernel) would make out of anybody an a**hole.
I'd say his job is 99.9% of times saying "NO" to all the silly proposals flying all the time on glibc mail lists.
But it's just in this case he was wrong. Shit happens.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
When your embedded system has 8-16 MB of Flash and SD RAM, it matters.
The Code Master
He's got some good points. He does express them in a way that's unnecessarily offensive and combative. But that doesn't make him an asshole. That makes him a typical geek!
Then we need fewer typical geeks, and more atypical geeks.
That's quite a read, you have to go out of your way to get multiple people writing comments like this one:
:D"
"Wow, you are a bastard. I hope you die alone.
How do people with an attitude like Drepper's become maintainers of crucial projects? He seems obviously unsuitable (whether he has superb technical skills or not).
He's got some good points. He does express them in a way that's unnecessarily offensive and combative. But that doesn't make him an asshole. That makes him a typical geek!
Then we need fewer typical geeks, and more atypical geeks.
Indeed. For the record, I don't think he is a typical geek. But if that's your definition of typical geek, then the typical geek is an asshole.