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Who controls glibc?

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Re: Who controls glibc?

#221

Post by peterwwillis »

chris_wot wrote: post #195

Though I can’t stand Ulrich Drepper, what he said in the glibc 2.2.4 release notes is true: “The morale of this is that people will hopefully realize what a control freak and raging manic Stallman is. Don't trust him. As soon as something isn't in line with his view he'll stab you in the back. NEVER voluntarily put a project you work on under the GNU umbrella since this means in Stallman's opinion that he has the rig…

  This part has a morale, too, and it is almost the same: don't trust
  this person.  Read the licenses carefully and rip out parts which give
  Stallman any possibility to influence your future.  Phrases like

     [...] GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free
     Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your
     option) any later version.

  just invites him to screw you when it pleases him.  Rip out the "any
  later version" part and make your own decisions when to use a
  different license since otherwise he can potentially do you or your
  work harm.
I never noticed this before. Whether it was intentionally conspiratorial or not, it's certainly an important legal and organizational consideration.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#222

Post by dralley »

ajross wrote: post #206
dralley wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The joke has meaning Only if you're American and also have the requisite background knowledge to understand it, which many don't. If you don't know the context, it's meaningless. Which is not a good thing to have in technical documentation.

> Only if [you...] have the requisite background knowledge to understand it, which many don't. It's literally the C library reference manual. That's true of the whole thing! The point is that it has meaning, however obscure, and reflects a particular principled intent of the author. And the request to remove it is cosmetic. And you resolve that by holding to the author's intent and not just polishing it to fit your s…

>It's literally the C library reference manual. That's true of the whole thing!

You have to know about the global gag rule prohibiting health providers that receive federal funds from discussing abortion with their patients to understand the entire C library reference manual? News to me.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#223

Post by quotemstr »

LinuxBender wrote: post #5
wyldfire wrote: post #2

What an unexpected schism! > "As the head of the GNU Project, I am in charge of what we publish in GNU manuals. I decide the criteria to decide by, too" Interesting. Sounds decidedly authoritarian to cite (sole?) control of the content and criteria. > "I exercise my authority over Glibc very rarely -- and when I have done so, I have talked with the official maintainers. So rarely that some of you thought that you are…

I know of one distro that uses muslc [0] vs. glibc and they have a wrapper that allows most build tools to work (mostly) as expected. Are there any other options? [0] - https://www.musl-libc.org/faq.html

Last time I checked, musl didn't support random important things. Consider dlclose: unsupported due to an unfounded (IMHO) assertion that it's not possible to implement such a thing safely. Nevertheless, people _have_ been unloading shared libraries for decades, so musl asserting that it's impossible makes me question musl's other technical decisions.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#224

Post by eridius »

jonhendry18 wrote: post #199
eridius wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't about "freedom of choice", and the fact that you're even suggesting that means you've missed the point. This is about the fact that a joke that has anything to do with a sensitive topic like abortion is wildly inappropriate to have in technical documentation. Even if you ignore the abortion angle, this is still a political joke, which is also inappropriate for this context. In fact, most jokes are fairly i…

God forbid there be any politics in GNU software. Oh, wait, GNU software is inherently political.

The politics of GNU is not only completely separate from the politics of abortion debate, but we're also talking about technical documentation here, which is an apolitical thing. Someone reading technical documentation is not doing so because they're trying to be involved in the politics, they're doing so because they're looking for, you guessed it, technical documentation.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#225

Post by quotemstr »

slededit wrote: post #64
GW150914 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone who decided they’d rather have a giant paycheck than have fun made it happen. This site is full of people who make and made that choice, who chase VC money, and consequently have little right to complain about how corporate their working lives are.

Money has always been around, but even "corporate" was not nearly as stifling. 90s era Microsoft code is quite colorful - as I'm sure it would have been at most other companies of the era.

Even today, the Windows source code contains quite a few long, narrative comments that are both historically educational and entertaining to read.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#226

Post by __blockcipher__ »

ajross wrote: post #206
dralley wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The joke has meaning Only if you're American and also have the requisite background knowledge to understand it, which many don't. If you don't know the context, it's meaningless. Which is not a good thing to have in technical documentation.

> Only if [you...] have the requisite background knowledge to understand it, which many don't. It's literally the C library reference manual. That's true of the whole thing! The point is that it has meaning, however obscure, and reflects a particular principled intent of the author. And the request to remove it is cosmetic. And you resolve that by holding to the author's intent and not just polishing it to fit your s…

I find your line of reasoning vague and...I don't know the word, it seems very one-sided.

what do you mean by the "C library reference manual"? The glibc man or something else? Cause to me glibc is just GNU's implementation of the C standard.

RMS can decide what goes in the GNU manual, sure. But you didn't even address the fact that the joke is not understandable unless you're from a very specific background (how many people are familiar with US imperialistic politics and the global gag rule?)

Re: Who controls glibc?

#227

Post by jonhendry18 »

eridius wrote: post #224
jonhendry18 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God forbid there be any politics in GNU software. Oh, wait, GNU software is inherently political.

The politics of GNU is not only completely separate from the politics of abortion debate, but we're also talking about technical documentation here, which is an apolitical thing. Someone reading technical documentation is not doing so because they're trying to be involved in the politics, they're doing so because they're looking for, you guessed it, technical documentation .

"talking about technical documentation here, which is an apolitical thing"

There's no requirement of that, just like there's no requirement that technical documentation be stab-your-eyes-out dry and boring rather than having an occasional bit of humor.

Apolitical technical documentation is a style choice, saying that you want to emulate a certain style of documentation.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#228

Post by omeid2 »

eridius wrote: post #192
omeid2 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely does matter. The notion that making mockery of law that prohibits one's freedom of choice being the same as mockery of the said choice itself is astoundingly absurd. The first, mockery of law-- specially one that imposes restrictions on citizens is a political consideration, while mockery of a personal subject outside the context of politics is an ideological concern. To make it more clear, please consi…

This isn't about "freedom of choice", and the fact that you're even suggesting that means you've missed the point. This is about the fact that a joke that has anything to do with a sensitive topic like abortion is wildly inappropriate to have in technical documentation. Even if you ignore the abortion angle, this is still a political joke, which is also inappropriate for this context. In fact, most jokes are fairly i…

As already pointed out, the whole FOSS movement and so GNU project is a political enterprise, technology is only the means to an end.

In fact, it could be argued that the core principal and objective of FOSS and GNU project is reinforcement of liberty by protection and promotion of freedom of choice in the digital age.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#230

Post by ciupicri »

ubernostrum wrote: post #165
bhhaskin wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with RMS on this. People need to grow up. It's ok to be offended, but not ok to try and correct everyone just because you are offended. A line needs to be drawn somewhere and this is harmless.

I wish I could make RMS, and you, and everyone who agrees with you, live in a sort of reverse-Kantian world, where whatever you advocate for as acceptable behavior when you do it becomes a universal law of conduct for other people to use when interacting with you. No matter how much of a "thick skin" you may think you have, I'd lay money that in a world which truly worked this way, you'd last under an hour before aba…

I think RMS has been "attacked" quite a lot of times since he founded FSF and even before it, yet look at him, he's still advocating for what he believes in.
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