Meeting Minutes - Office Hours for CTI - 2026-08-28

[Zack Weinberg]

On Fri, Sep 4, 2026, at 10:47 AM, Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:
> On 2026-09-02 05:30, Mark Wielaard wrote:
>> On Fri, Aug 28, 2026 at 12:19:41PM -0400, Carlos O'Donell wrote:
>>>   * Discussions will start in earnest on Monday, including updating
>>>     libc-alpha with updated proposals for feedback.
>>
>> Lets deal with the objections and feedback on the previous proposal
>> first. Zoë Kooyman wrote a good high-level summary:
>> https://inbox.sourceware.org/libc-alpha/7021a9fb-2476-463c-8eab-a4e254d93df2@fsf.org/
>
> I didn't see anything in that email other than rehashing of points we
> (the glibc community) have already discussed in the past.
...
> No, the glibc community has already made a decision on this.

The glibc community has *not* made a decision on this.  Only a
subset of the glibc community who are able to meet face to face
has made a decision.

The only legitimate venue for decision-making by the entire glibc
community is *this mailing list*.  Until the *entire conversation*
leading up to a decision regarding a potential move is conducted
*on this mailing list*, no legitimate decision has been made.

I will continue to oppose the move on procedural grounds until its
proponents start the discussion over, from scratch, and conduct it
*exclusively* on this mailing list.  No more back channels.  No more
face to face meetings.  No more synchronous meetings of any kind.
Only emails to this mailing list.

Additionally, the group advocating the move to LF infrastructure has
never adequately explained their motivations to the community as a
whole.  In my previous message on this subject[1], I said

> A big disruptive change like transferring hosting to an entirely
> different provider requires a big reason.  It may well be that there
> are excellent reasons, technical or otherwise, why a move off of
> sourceware is a really good idea.  Please!  Explain those reasons.
> Be candid.  Be detailed.  Let the rest of us understand your thinking.
> Because right now, knowing only what I know, it seems to me that the
> move is *unnecessary*.

I did get some concrete responses to that query, but none of the stated
reasons struck me as adequate to justify a big disruptive change.
In fact, all of the issues mentioned struck me as *easier* to address
incrementally, while remaining on the existing infrastructure.
(I regret not having followed up to say so at the time.)  It remains my
opinion that the proposed move is unnecessary, and I will continue to
oppose it on practical grounds until its proponents provide - to this
mailing list - reasons which justify the disruption *and* which cannot
be addressed more easily by incremental changes on the current
infrastructure.

zw

[1] https://sourceware.org/pipermail/libc-alpha/2026-January/174600.html