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Re: [open-source] Re: Wish for 2002 ...
- From: Felix von Leitner <felix-secaudit at fefe dot de>
- To: "Thomas Bushnell, BSG" <tb at becket dot net>
- Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds at transmeta dot com>, Paul Eggert <eggert at twinsun dot com>, leclerc at austin dot sns dot slb dot com, security-audit at ferret dot lmh dot ox dot ac dot uk, libc-alpha at sources dot redhat dot com, open-source at csl dot sri dot com
- Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 14:05:13 +0100
- Subject: Re: [open-source] Re: Wish for 2002 ...
- References: <Pine.LNX.4.33.0201101750490.3326-100000@penguin.transmeta.com> <874rltocqs.fsf@becket.becket.net>
Thus spake Thomas Bushnell, BSG (tb@becket.net):
> > More importantly, even _if_ glibc were to make that choice, those stupid
> > programs would STILL not be portable.
> But, they would run better on GNU/Linux systems, which is the whole
> reason for having string functions in glibc in the first place.
No. That's _exactly_ the point.
They would _not_ run better, because they still would have to include
a copy of strl* for systems which don't have it in glibc. So you would
bloat glibc even further without any benefit whatsoever, because the
programs still need to include a copy of the code.
Look, libc is not a masturbation exercise. It is there to satisfy a
standard called the Single Unix Specification. Programs are asked to
expect exactly the features of the Single Unix Specification and none
more. If they know of some libc that offers extended functionality,
they need to test for its presence before using it.
Felix