Re: glibc 2.1.91 based distributions :-(.

[Ulrich Drepper <drepper at redhat dot com>]

Andreas Jaeger <aj@suse.de> writes:

> glibc will definitly change in an incompatible way, e.g. the
> RPC-IPv6 code has to be fixed.

As Jakub mentioned, the verson we released comes without the IPv6
stuff and is therefore copmatible with 2.1.  Jakub's patch is the one
I'll apply if I don't get a solution implementing IPv6 correctly in
the next few days.  Therefore there is really no compatibility
problem.

And yes, I would have wished if the public beta would have been later.
But so be it.  What I managed to do before was to add all the binary
incompatible changes before the release (and Bruno had the CTYPE
changes also ready in time).  This beta was the reason I could spend
so much time on glibc lately (and believe, it was a lot).

So, if you have anything you think is wrong let me know now.  My todo
list is almost empty.  There are not many solvable PRs left, I know of
no critical problems myself, there will be cleanups and various
profiling measurements.

> This has caused already in the past some problems, e.g. the usage
> of an early test release of glibc 2.0 on PowerPC and Alpha (we changed
> a serious bug and introduced an incompatibility in the final 2.0).

Yes, and this would be done here as well *if* it's necessary.  It's a
risk the people making the distribution here in house took.

> I do know that this means lots of testers and testing - which I do
> appreciate.

It especially means compatibility testing which hasn't been done by
anybody here so far in large scale.  Just assume there wouldn't be
this wide-scale call for testing and 2.2 comes out without binary
compatibility with 2.2.  It's better to do it this way.  I would wish
everybody would do these technology previews (similar to our Rawhide
stuff) and even test releases.  If you take a look at the announcement
you'll see that it contains a warning similar to the one we have in
configure.  It discourages people from using it on production
machines.  I think this is as clear as it can get.

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