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Re: Principles for API sources
- From: Joseph Myers <joseph at codesourcery dot com>
- To: <libc-alpha at sourceware dot org>
- Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2015 17:04:35 +0000
- Subject: Re: Principles for API sources
- Authentication-results: sourceware.org; auth=none
- References: <alpine dot DEB dot 2 dot 10 dot 1511061326480 dot 10753 at digraph dot polyomino dot org dot uk>
I should clarify a couple of points in my proposed principles:
* Sometimes we may wish to consider APIs that come from ISO C and POSIX
standard drafts rather than an approved standard. We should be willing to
add such APIs if it seems likely they will not be removed or change
incompatibly (in a way requiring new symbol versions) before approval.
When implementing such APIs and reviewing the implementations, we should
be alert for deficiencies in the design and specification of the
interfaces, raising any such issues found with the standards committees
and deferring inclusion in glibc as necessary to allow for issues to be
resolved.
* I didn't mention reasons for preferring Linux syscalls over BSD systems
over other Unix-like systems as sources of APIs. That preference is
because the interface design traditions followed for Linux syscalls are
closer to the design traditions used in glibc - there is less divergence
between the choices made, and the communities overlap more. The Linux
syscalls, unlike the other interfaces, are generally designed for an
environment using glibc.
--
Joseph S. Myers
joseph@codesourcery.com