Re: [PATCH] pldd.1: Document glibc's unbreakage of tool.

["G. Branden Robinson" <g dot branden dot robinson at gmail dot com>]

Hi Florian!  Response inline.

At 2019-05-13T11:48:19+0200, Florian Weimer wrote:
> * G. Branden Robinson:
> 
> >  .SH BUGS
> > -Since glibc 2.19,
> > +From glibc 2.19 to 2.29,
> >  .B pldd
> > -is broken: it just hangs when executed.
> > -.\" FIXME . https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=18035
> > -It is unclear if it will ever be fixed.
> > +was broken: it just hung when executed.
> > +.\" glibc commit 1a4c27355e146b6d8cc6487b998462c7fdd1048f
> > +This problem was fixed in glibc 2.30.
> 
> I'm not sure if it makes sense to document this in the manual page.

It might not; another resonable approach might be to nuke the "Bugs"
section of the man page entirely.  However, see below.

> I expect that the fix will propagate to affected distributions fairly
> quickly, now that it is available upstream.

True for fast-moving distributions; as I noted in the commit message,
Debian 10 has already got it backported to its glibc 2.29.

> It's certainly more likely that users will receive a glibc update with
> the fix than a manpage update with this change.

Desktop systems will get both; stripped-down systems will likely follow
your scenario.  On the other hand I generally read man pages on my
full-blown {desk,lap}top, not some embedded or target system.  So I can
imagine a scenario where somebody is targeting a "stable" or legacy
system with glibc 2.29 or older and is wondering why the F "pldd"
doesn't work.  They type "man pldd" (as a last resort, of course) on
their dev box, and lo and behold, all is explained.

Michael K. is pretty diligent about having man-pages track behavior
changes as they come and go in the Linux kernel, and my patch is an
attempt to match that tradition.  However, it might not make sense or be
his preference for the glibc-related man pages.

My primary concern is to get what is now a false statement corrected or
removed.  pldd is not still broken.

I have an update for the fiddly third patch, but once Michael follows up
I'll continue that branch of the thread on linux-man only; I'm confident
libc-alpha does not care about the fine details of *roff markup.

Regards,
Branden

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