Re: Inclusion of Linux headers in current glibc

[Kaz Kylheku <kaz at ashi dot footprints dot net>]

On Thu, 27 Jul 2000, Linus Torvalds wrote:

> What I suggested a few times to Uli was to just copy the specific headers
> you need to the glibc tree, and then even _edit_ them to possibly remove
> unnecessary cruft (stuff inside __KERNEL__ etc - it makes the user land
> compile slower for no good reason).
> 
> Uli, probably correctly, said that it was a maintenance nightmare, and
> that glibc does want to occasionally sync up with the kernel. So
> especially the editing seems to be out. 

It's doesn't seem that infeasible if you consider that glibc is
version-controlled CVS.  With CVS you can maintain a local variant of files
derived from a ``vendor'', and can sync up quite easily by doing imports of
vendor snapshots. CVS does automatic merges whenever it can, and identifies
conflicts which the user can resolve manually.

The main difficulties arise when the vendor messes with the directory
structure, which is not versioned by CVS; the first import, and successive
snapshots have to have the same structure for this to work smoothly.
Rampant file removing and adding could also pose difficulties.