CTI - Making a decision for glibc.

[Zack Weinberg]

On Wed, Jan 28, 2026, at 7:00 PM, Carlos O'Donell wrote:
> On 1/28/26 5:26 PM, Andrew Pinski wrote:
>> On Wed, Jan 28, 2026 at 2:13 PM Siddhesh Poyarekar <siddhesh@gotplt.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 2026-01-28 16:45, Zack Weinberg wrote:
>>>> 1. It's my impression that there are a small number of people (Carlos
>>>>      O'Donell, David Edelsohn, Joseph Myers, and possibly *no one else*)
>>>>      who feel strongly that glibc should move off of sourceware.org, and
>>>>      *everyone else* with a stake in the matter is somewhere on a spectrum
>>>>      between neutral and a strong belief that glibc *shouldn't* move, or
>>>>      at least, should not move to infrastructure hosted by the Linux
>>>>      Foundation.
>>>
>>> If you're naming names it's Carlos O'Donell, David Edelsohn, Joseph
>>> Myers, Siddhesh Poyarekar, Florian Weimer, Maxim Kuvyrkov, Jeff Law and
>>> Andreas Huettel who have vocally supported the move in this thread,
>>> while many others (who I hope will chime in too) who contribute on a day
>>> to day basis, have expressed support offline in the past.  Your base
>>> characterization of the situation is flawed I'm afraid.

I regret the error.  It is difficult for me, as a very occasional
contributor who is way behind on the mailing list and cannot attend
any in-person meetings, to keep track of who is on what side of which
fence.

...
> A proposal should consider multiple factors.
>
> (1) Security.
> (2) Sponsorship.
> (3) Experience.
>
> Whoever implements the solution...

I cut all of Carlos’s exposition down to just this skeleton because I
want to make a very high level point:

The entire argument as he laid it out, reads to me as a solution
in search of a problem.

Again, I’m a very occasional contributor who is barely affected by any
of the things that have come up in this thread, and will be barely
affected by a move, if and when it happens.  But I’m just not seeing
enough of a reason put forward to *bother* moving glibc.  A variety of
problems with sourceware have been articulated, but all of them strike
me as *easier* to fix in situ than by moving to new infrastructure.
A desire for additional funding has been articulated, but the primary
reason I’m aware of why money would be needed, is to pay developers
to work more on glibc, and salaries should have no reason to be tied
to hosting for the canonical VCS repository and bug tracker.

So, as I said last time around: Proponents, please *explain your
reasons for seeking to move glibc*.  Not the criteria you chose
for evaluating funding and/or hosting source, but the reasons
why you were out there looking for funding and/or hosting sources
in the first place!

Explain how you have tried and failed to fix the technical issues
in situ; explain why it wouldn’t be *more work* to fix them in
conjunction with a move.  Explain what you plan to do with the money,
and why you consider “only if we also provide the hosting” an
acceptable condition attached to the money.

Go all the way back to the beginning of your thought process.
Be specific.  Be detailed.  Be candid.  Let the rest of us understand
your thinking.  Because right now, I repeat, knowing only what I know,
it seems to me that a move is *unnecessary*.

zw