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Re: [PATCH] change GLIBC PPC64/ELF2 ABI default to 2.17


On 01/29/2014 01:11 PM, Roland McGrath wrote:
> The proposed change is contrary to longstanding explicit policy.  But so is
> that status quo that Adam is asking to maintain.  IMHO there were very good
> reasons we had that policy, and one of those was keeping the libc community
> out of bicker wars between distributions that chomped at the bit and
> released something before it was declared official by the community.  

The problem with that policy is that it isn't what is best for our users,
and I'm talking with both FSF and Red Hat hats on.

It forces our users to use the most recent version of glibc which may not
be what they want to use or may not be entirely compatible with the free,
open source, or proprietary software they are trying to support.

The setting of the baseline ABI should be a consensus discussion with the
machine maintainers having a final say in the value.

However, once that goes out in an official release, it's locked in forever.
An official release is the marker of ABI stability.

If you want to lock in the ABI you should backport the patches to 2.18, 
and work with the release maintainer to release a 2.18.1 with the ABI 
locked down.

The bickering is reduced to: Get it released upstream first.

> I think we should just stick to the policy, so it's GLIBC_2.19 because
> that's the first glibc release that will support the configuration.  Adam
> and Steven both deserve what they get.  The policy was established and they
> ignored it when they started distributing binaries for a glibc ABI that was
> never part of an actual glibc release.  That's the only way to be fair to
> everyone (by making nobody happy).

I disagree.

> But at the end of the day, these things have to be in the hands of the
> machine maintainers.  Steven is one of the powerpc maintainers and Adam is
> not.  Steven has an obligation to do what is right and proper as a GNU
> maintainer concerned with all users and the maintenance burdens on the
> project, independent of his role at IBM and his concern with users of IBM's
> products.  But I can't make that judgement about powerpc users at large.

I completely agree.

Cheers,
Carlos.


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