Re: Latest Glibc from CVS has segmentation problems.

[Marcus Brinkmann <marcus dot brinkmann at ruhr-uni-bochum dot de>]

At 07 Mar 2004 12:29:08 -0500,
Patrick J. LoPresti wrote:
> 
> Marcus Brinkmann <marcus.brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de> writes:
> 
> > I am hopeful that if somebody would make a serious effort to guide
> > newbies around glibc, we could get him to say something like
> > "www.glibc-for-newbies.com", which is shorter.  When there is no such
> > effort, however, the best advise to give lost people is to not bother
> > trying, so they know that they are on their own.
> 
> I would like to see such an effort as well, but that is really beside
> the point.

I am not talking about "liking to see such an effort".  I am talking
about if you want things get done, do them.  Free Software never meant
that other people do the work for you, nor does it mean that you can
state the rules of other people's work.

Now, inquiries, suggestions, criticism, etc, all that is allowed.
It's a natural part of the whole.  But the only thing that guarantees
a result is your own work.

For glibc, the status quo is that the maintainers do the developing,
and that almost all of the end-user business is proxied by the
distributions.  That is the case because it just makes sense.  I am
repeating myself here, but glibc is almost never, ever shipped by
distributions as released.  So, bug reports always should first go to
the distribution maker, and so on.  Yes, this puts people who want to
do it differently at an advantage.  That's a pity, but there is just
nobody you can blame.  A priori, it is a fact you have to accept and
live with it.

Now, if changing this would be a zero-effort procedure, just flipping
a switch somewhere and it will be different, it would be worthwhile to
consider the alternative for all the advantages you listed.  But it
isn't.  Doing it differently comes at a cost (man power, money,
whatever), so you have to leave the decisions to those doing the work.
It's that simple.  Even so much as documenting the status quo on the
web pages is work.  Essentially, you get what you pay for.  If it is
different for other projects, accept it as a gift, be grateful, and
pass it on.

Thanks,
Marcus