Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Who controls glibc?

lwn.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

471–480 of 528 posts

Re: Who controls glibc?

#471

Post by earenndil »

rurban wrote: post #451
earenndil wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is the freebsd libc; they run their own.

Which is in fact the most used, and arguably technically superior to glibc. freebsd -> darwin, openbsd, netbsd and dragonfly bsd. openbsd and netbsd like to add their own stuff on top of it also. The Open Watcom libc and bionic are also superior. bionic is getting better and better recently. musl is in some parts better, in some parts worse. Same for Embarcadero C++ libc. Worse than glibc are only: the two MS libc's,…

> Worse than glibc are only [lists as many libcs as are better than it]

Perhaps glibc isn't that bad...

Re: Who controls glibc?

#472

Post by zeveb »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #321
davexunit wrote: post #164

RMS needs to be removed from his dictator position in GNU. This is just one of many times that he has hurt a GNU project. He has held many projects back because he is so behind the times and stubborn, not to mention holding the FSF back. This behavior isn't limited to mailing lists, either. He breaks LibrePlanet conference rules every year to interject and rant during talks he disagrees with. I appreciate him for fou…

Basically, he started a political project that produces software furthering his political views. You like the software, but dislike the politics, so you want to take the software and get rid of politics. The more I read the views like that, the more I understand GNU's insistence on GPL and copyright sign-offs for contributions. For instance, GPL's whole point is to prevent you from taking the software and removing th…

> Basically, he started a political project that produces software furthering his political views.

A political software project that produces software furthering his political views about software.

> You like the software, but dislike the politics

I like the software & the software politics. rms's opinion on other political matters is irrelevant to the FSF or GNU. I find some of his non-software political views spot-on, and others completely abhorrent. I have no problem supporting the FSF if it limits itself to its remit; I cannot support it if it exceeds it and ventures into other territory.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#473

Post by danmg »

olliej wrote: post #116
danmg wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RMS isn't the one bikeshedding it.

he's the one forcing it -- he's not an active member of libc anymore, he's not a maintainer, but he decided that his personal joke from 20 years ago absolutely must remain in the documentation because he's petty. He sounds like the one in need of a safe space where nothing ever changes

It's more like he's preventing bikeshedding by stopping them from making irrelevant non-technical decisions.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#474

Post by tomtimtall »

nialv7 wrote: post #430
mikekchar wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a big fan of RMS, but I've got to say "No". He's not a maintainer. He doesn't get a vote. If he wants to work his way back into that project, then I've got no problem with it. But he doesn't. It's like the CEO telling you that he wants a joke in the technical documentation for one of your libraries. They might get away with it because of their position, but it's an abuse of that position even if the CEO used to b…

Well, let's not forget that "CEO" wrote that technical documentation. And probably also wrote (at least an older version of) the code, too.

Which counts for absolutely nothing. A CEO running around the floor of the business telling programmers what jokes belong in what docs is a shit CEO no matter what he didn’t years past.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#475

Post by geezerjay »

tomtimtall wrote: post #474
nialv7 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, let's not forget that "CEO" wrote that technical documentation. And probably also wrote (at least an older version of) the code, too.

Which counts for absolutely nothing. A CEO running around the floor of the business telling programmers what jokes belong in what docs is a shit CEO no matter what he didn’t years past.

I fail to see why, if that joke is actually a clear statement of the fundamental message that the project was designed to convey, and the whole reason why the FSF exists.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#476

Post by keiyakins »

rurban wrote: post #399
DandyDev wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dictator in question certainly doesn't seem Benevolent to me in this case.

He certainly is. He tries to protect the project from morons, which invaded most bigger projects which are not cultured in technical discussions anymore. Compare that to the education of doctors. They need to persist on proper terminology and are hardened in a long process. PC is absolutely counterproductive there. Many obviously did not get the reference in this paragraph, but it still relevant, as this episode show…

> PC is absolutely counterproductive there

A. No, the terminology used by medical professionals is constantly shifting to do things like acknowledge that people with issues are still people.

B. Your reasoning is presumably about confusion and lack of clarity, yes? How exactly is a reference to a law that has never been proposed serving that?

Re: Who controls glibc?

#477

Post by esrauch »

da_chicken wrote: post #423
esrauch wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the point of the project? What goal does it achieve? There was a gcc frontend/backend clean architecture dispute: some wanted it so that gcc could be used for more things that clang is being used for. RMS argued against it, on the basis that GCC technical architecture should deliberately avoid it working with proprietary non-GPL backends. The official story is that a technically worse compiler than loses mark…

Those arguments don't work. Just because a goal of the project is an inherently political one doesn't mean that any outcome or action even remotely political is inherently the goal of the project. That's an absurd hasty generalization. Further, just because one of the overall goals of the project is political doesn't mean that every goal of the project is political. That's a composition fallacy.

What arguments don't work?

The truth is that FSF is primarily a political organization. It is more of a political organization than any other open source foundation, eg they do things like refuse to endorse any OS that distributes any piece of non-free (read: GPL) software. They advocate against non-GPL open source as harmful. They guide their projects to be technically worse if it supports the political mission.

There is confusion here about what Stallmans role even is since he isn't an active technical contributor: his role to make sure the political vision is being enforced in the projects under FSF/GNU stewardship and that is exactly what he is doing here.

Basically, if something is not advancing the goals of the FSF then it shouldn't be a part of the FSF. It isn't news that the goal of the FSF isn't to make high quality software and they just think free software is the pragmatically best model to achieve that:

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/compromise.en.html

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/when-free-software-isnt-pract...

Re: Who controls glibc?

#478

Post by enriquto »

hapnin wrote: post #153
thiagoharry wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The TexBook was a technical documentation for TeX written by Donald Knuth. The book had a lot of jokes, and I enjoyed reading it.

Knuth is actually funny.

Knuth has a great sense of humor in his books and exercices. I also like Stallman's jokes, but I can concede that they are sligthly less funny than Knuth's.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#479

Post by keiyakins »

bhhaskin wrote: post #97
matthewbauer wrote: post #87

So what annoys me about this discussion is that both sides are not being very honest. Calling it an "abortion joke" is to me highly misleading. It's an "abortion law joke" & has nothing to do with the procedure of abortion! The people arguing against it seem to be implying its much more inappropriate than it is. Anyway, no where in the article is the actual "joke" mentioned. So I'd like to include it here just so peo…

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 read it the other way around, with RMS being the one offended and trying to correct everyone: the people maintaining glibc agreed to change part of the documentation because it wasn't serving a useful purpose, either as technical material, core philosophical material, or as material reinforcing one of those two (which can include a carefully-crafted joke, don't get me wrong). RMS got offended and tried to force them to keep it.

Re: Who controls glibc?

#480

Post by keiyakins »

roenxi wrote: post #132
geofft wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody who removed the joke said they were offended by it, they just said that they didn't believe it was the sort of thing that belonged in technical documentation. If anyone is offended, it is RMS, in the sense that he seems personally affronted that he doesn't carry the line-item veto power he thinks he had over all of GNU and people did not ask him before removing something he added 25 years ago. Not everyone who…

Technical documentation isn't the place for a joke full stop. Documentation is for people who are typically busy, uncertain and potentially dealing with something that is going wrong. They want clear, concise and accessible help. They don't want or need tasteless jokes. It is disrespectful to their time to include random garbage. This is supposed to be read by people who need it, not people who know what is going on…

A well-constructed joke can make documentation more useful. I can't think of an example off the top of my head, but there've been plenty of times that something made me laugh and go "NOW I get it!" to the technical material.

This isn't a well-constructed joke in that sense - it's likely to cause confusion, not increased understanding.

Post reply on HN